dark eyes resting ruefully on Kerry’s face. “Before, if he was not at the office or abroad, you would find him having to help one of us…eh?”
Kerry nodded honestly. Alex had always been very much in demand. If they bought a new house, if someone was ill, if there was marital dissension or problems in business—they called Alex. In the past she had resented those constant encroachments into what little time they had together as a couple.
“I think you will find this has changed,” Carina murmured, and her sincerity made Kerry feel uncomfortable, for the less she saw of Alex in their present relationship, the happier she would be.
After dinner, served in the lofty-ceilinged dining-room, Kerry inwardly accepted that they were obviously expected to stay the night here. Coffee was served in the drawing-room, and she found herself seated with Athene, everybody else steering a rather deliberate passage to leave them in privacy.
“We have had our differences in the past,” Athene delivered with a regal inclination of her silvered head. “But you are Alex’s wife again now and these must be set aside. I want you to know that I did not want the divorce. I begged Alex to reconsider. Our family has never had a divorce before, and you were expecting my grandson. In the light of your remarriage, it is clear that Alex should have listened to me.” Before she could reply, Athene added smoothly, “We will not speak of this again.”
The conversation became general, and Alex’s other two sisters, Maria and Contadina joined them. As usual, all the men were on the other side of the room. Kerry’s mind began to wander restively. She would have to share a bedroom with Alex tonight. Some wedding night it was going to be, she reflected tensely.
“You’re in your usual rooms,” Athene informed her later on, and Kerry’s cheeks warmed.
She mounted the stairs, smothering a yawn. The resident nanny had marshalled Carina’s children and Nicky off to bed earlier. It was comforting to find their bedroom suite changed beyond recognition. She felt less like a woman in a time warp. Then she had to admit that there was very little left of the happy, gauche and outspoken teenager she had been when she first came to this house. With hindsight, she disliked Athene less for the callous and cold snubs dealt to her behind Alex’s back.
What a ghastly shock she must have been to Athene’s snobbish and ambitious hopes for her eldest son! Alex’s bride had been a chirpy teenager, who wore her thoughts and her feelings on her sleeve and hurled herself into Alex’s arms when he came home, regardless of who was present. Her confidence had not lasted. She had lived on the periphery of Alex’s busy schedule, and the shopping trips, the endless rounds of polite socialising which had filled his sisters’ days, these had driven her up the walls with boredom.
“Alex…of all my sons,” she had once heard Athene proclaim to a close friend. “Marrying a little nobody with no breeding and no background. She will always be an embarrassment to him. Wherever she goes she is late. Her taste in clothes is indescribable, and she gossips with the maids…”
In remembrance, a rueful grin lit Kerry’s lips. How terribly lonely she had been here, and yet how afraid that the criticisms were just ones. But the memories no longer bit with venom. She had let her insecurities grow out of proportion, and Athene, still reeling in those early days from Alex’s choice of bride, had received a vengeful pleasure from pointing out her failings. Once they had moved to Florence, Kerry had evaded every effort Alex made to draw his family back into their lives. It must have been very hard for him. Naturally he had thought she was being unreasonable. Athene had never dared to be malicious when he was around.
Why was she thinking this way? Why was she seeing her own faults and making excuses for his? He had neglected her. He had refused to see that she wasn’t the rich idle wife type. When she had become pregnant the sense of being trapped had grown stronger, for Alex had used her condition as an excuse to keep her tied to the house in Florence those first few months. Vickie had had a strong influence on Kerry then. It had not been difficult for Vickie to heighten Kerry’s resentment of Alex’s possessiveness. But Alex had grown up with a mother and three sisters who automatically deferred to him. If he had loved her…how could he really have loved her? she asked herself cynically, irritated by the tenor of her thoughts.
He came into the room and shed his jacket. She kept on reading her magazine doggedly.
“This won’t work,” he breathed. “We can’t live like strangers and hope to give our son a happy environment.”
“You should have thought of that.” His reasonable tone, the sombre cast of his appraisal were, however, disconcerting. She had expected a return of the anger and the obduracy he had briefly displayed during the flight.
“No.” Cool fingers twitched up the magazine and tossed it arrogantly aside. “You should have thought of that before you shared my bed a few nights ago. We cannot for ever throw recriminations at each other. What is done is done. This marriage is a new beginning, not a continuation of hostilities. I will accept nothing less.” The hawk-gold gaze rested calmly on her infuriated face. “That is all I have to say for now.”
He strolled into the bathroom, leaving her a prey to temper. Alex had turned sanctimonious. At least in his contempt and anger and need for revenge that night at the apartment, he had been honest with her. But now he realised that he had been too honest and that she had more backbone than he had given her credit for possessing. Naturally, he didn’t want a wife who loathed him. He didn’t want the arguments, either. He could afford to be generous now that he had got what he wanted. Having taken her in lust, honour was now more or less satisfied. If he could convince her that he was now magnanimously prepared for a fresh start without retrospective glances into the past, what did it really cost him?
Alex could be very charming and very credible. Until she had offended, she had had no idea that nine-tenths of the real Alex was hidden beneath an indulgent and sophisticated surface. Having learnt painfully at first hand how merciless and hard he could be, she must never be taken in by pleasantries again. He couldn’t possibly be practising sincerity. Not after the cruel intimidation and derision he had employed to get her to the altar. She had to admit that from the moment that ring went on her finger again, Alex had been extraordinarily civil. But then that was for Nicky’s sake and his family’s. No, she couldn’t afford to trust him. At heart, he despised her still.
When he came to bed, Kerry was pretending to be asleep.
“Goodnight,” he murmured softly, without coming near her.
In the darkness she grimaced. He certainly wasn’t burning with desire for her! Anger and revenge had powered his previous hunger into a physical catharsis. Those fierce emotions slaked, only masculine pride would make Alex demand repetition. It would never happen again, she promised herself. Now that she was free of the shackles of the old guilt, she was her own person again, and self-preservation came first.
* * *
“GREECE?” she mumbled sleepily.
He had shaken her awake, and with difficulty. She had finally dropped off about four in the morning. Opening her eyes to Alex’s leaping vitality and the intimacy of the bedroom scene sharply off-balanced her. He had further dismayed her by announcing that they were leaving this morning for the island of Kordos, which had come to Alex by inheritance via his Greek grandfather. “Greece?” she said again.
Alex shifted a broad shoulder sheathed in white silk. “We have to spend some time together.”
“To satisfy convention?” she taunted.
His perfectly chiselled mouth firmed. “We need time to bridge the gap of years. Time to relax and become acquainted with each other again, if you like, and we certainly do not require an audience while we accomplish that feat.”
“I don’t want to go to Greece.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he murmured drily. “We are going, and when we leave the island, we will return to our home in Florence. I still have the house there. You’re going to be late for breakfast if you don’t get up,” he completed, sweeping u
p his jacket and departing.
Alex, you rotten, manipulative swine, she thought. He had saved it all up and delivered it as stated fact. A honeymoon in Greece and a return to Florence. It was a shock to learn that he still owned the house they had once chosen together. She had assumed that he would have sold Casa del Fiore.
She had to rush to get downstairs in time for breakfast, and Nicky was nowhere to be seen.
“Mario has taken Nicky and Carina’s boys out for breakfast. He’s also going to take them to the zoo,” Alex supplied. “I explained to Nicky that we would be away for a while. He will have plenty to occupy him here.”
As it sunk in that Nicky was not coming to Kordos with them, disbelief fired her almond-shaped green eyes.
“Alex and you need some peace,” Athene ruled down the table. “And Nicky is too attached to you.”
“How can a child be too attached to his mother?” Kerry enquired spiritedly. “We will talk about this in private,” Alex threw her a warning glance.
“Mamma did not mean to offend,” Carina soothed under the general cover of conversation. “But it is right that you should have time to spend as a couple before you become a family again.”
Kerry set her teeth together. How dared Alex arrange to leave Nicky behind without even consulting her? Indeed, having foreseen her objections, he had simply chosen to go over her head.
“I hate to tell you this, but Nicky is becoming a spoilt little brat,” Alex dropped when everybody else had deserted the table. “When he was with you he had all your attention, and when he was with me it was the same. I could not play the strict father then because I was afraid to destroy the relationship I did have with him. Everybody has spoilt Nicky because we were divorced.”
“But that’s going to change, right?” she gathered shakily.
“Gradually it will, as he adjusts to the presence of both of us.” He refused to rise to her anger, and he sighed. “You know as well as I do that what I say is true, but the main reason I made the decision that he should remain here is that if it were otherwise, he would inevitably become aware of the conflict between us, and I will not have that happen.”