Bride for Real (The Volakis Vow 2)

‘It’s a two-day wonder, glikia mou,’ he told her soothingly. ‘It’ll be someone else’s turn to be worked over and chased round town next week. You’ll get peace and quiet at Roxburn Manor.’

‘All right, but just for a couple of days,’ she agreed ruefully. ‘I want to sleep for a week.’

‘Are you sleeping properly?’ Sander enquired in a tone of concern that she resented.

‘I was sleeping perfectly until you came back into my life!’ Tally fielded thinly.

Ten minutes later, Johnson escorted her into the lift of a skyscraper office block and up out onto the roof where a Volakis helicopter awaited them. Tally scrambled in and buckled up, only realising as she did so that she didn’t even have a change of clothes with her. Just then her lack of luggage didn’t seem that important: she was in a daze, almost traumatised by the fast-moving events of the past twenty-four hours.

The journey in the helicopter provided a welcome distraction from her unhappy thoughts. The sky hung blue and clear above a world composed of green fields and woods broken up by occasional settlements of small houses. Roxburn Manor, however, was a somewhat more impressive building, she registered as the helicopter came in to land within yards of a very elegant Georgian mansion. Mrs Jones, the housekeeper, greeted Tally with a warm smile and took her straight through the big airy hall into a spacious reception room where a log fire was burning in the grate to take the chill off the cool early summer day. A tray of refreshments arrived and lunch was discussed.

Tally had not realised quite how tired or how hungry she was until she sank into the opulent feathered comfort of a capacious sofa and let the tension fall away. A cup of tea and several biscuits later, she kicked off her shoes, curled up and sleep overtook her. It was dusk when she awoke. Darkness lay beyond the firelight flickering bright reflections on the windows and the noise that had wakened her was the sound of a helicopter landing. Her brow pleating she sat up, pushing her tumbled hair off her brow and searching for her shoes.

A light knock sounded on the ajar door and the housekeeper glanced in. ‘Mrs Volakis? I didn’t like to wake you for lunch but now that your husband’s arrived, I’ll ensure that dinner is served without delay.’

Wide awake now, Tally scrambled off the sofa, green eyes huge, mouth falling open in surprise. ‘My husband?’ she framed unevenly, unable to conceal her dismay.

Just then, she heard Sander’s voice raised to address Mrs Jones and she stalked to the door in angry disbelief. What a fool she had been to blindly agree to being transported to Roxburn Manor! Why hadn’t it occurred to her that Sander might be planning to join her there? Or that Sander might use the harassment of the paparazzi as a weapon against her? Just when had she become so naïve that her astute husband could hoodwink her without effort?

Sander entered the hall, looking impossibly male, and tall and broad, in a dark cashmere overcoat worn over his business suit. Dark stubble roughening his strong jaw line, he turned hooded dark eyes on Tally’s petite figure in the drawing-room doorway. ‘Tally … Mrs Jones tells me you haven’t eaten yet. I won’t keep you waiting long—’

‘I need to speak to you,’ Tally began heatedly.

And then she heard a baby’s unmistakeable wail somewhere nearby. Sander stepped to one side and a youthful brunette with a baby carrier appeared. Tally’s attention homed straight in on the child it transported. Only part of a little red face and a quiff of curly dark hair showed above the edge of a rug. Paralysed to the spot by the sight, Tally lost every scrap of her angry colour and turned eyes of incredulous reproach on Sander before she wheeled round and retreated back into the drawing room, not trusting herself to speak while they had an audience.

Dear heaven, how could he set up such a confrontation? How could he bring that child to stay under the same roof as her? Did he have no conception of what he was doing to her? That was his child out there, the daughter he had had with Oleia! A soundless scream seemed to be stealing all the space in Tally’s lungs and she knew that she was hyperventilating again …

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘TALLY…’ Sander strode in and took off his coat, casting it down on a chair before closing the door to give them privacy.

Although Tally felt as though a large rock were sitting at the foot of her throat, she struggled to breathe normally again and loosen the choking tightness squeezing her chest. Sander focused deep-set eyes as tawny as a mountain cougar’s on her rigid features. With faint colour scoring his strong cheekbones and accentuating the sleek angles and the hollows of his superb bone structure, he looked stunningly handsome and yet cautious as a man balancing on a rope above an abyss.

‘How could you bring that child here?’ Tally demanded starkly, her disbelief unhidden. At the same time she was resenting the undeniable buzz that his arrival evoked, the fizz in her bloodstream that acted like too much wine on a weak head. It mortified her that she could still be so aware of him.

‘I couldn’t just leave them in the hotel.’

‘Why not?’ Tally prompted, in no mood to be reasonable.

‘Lili cries incessantly and she was disturbing the other guests. The hotel management was complaining.’ Sander compressed his wide sensual mouth as he made that exasperated admission. ‘Suzette’s replacement is new and inexperienced and she’s struggling to cope. There’s no way I could leave her in sole charge of Lili in London with a posse of paps hanging around looking for a photo opportunity.’

‘All of a sudden you’re acting so responsibly … like a real parent,’ Tally sneered. She hated herself for doing it but could not swallow back the gibe.

‘I’m doing my best,’ Sander acknowledged curtly, his beautifully shaped mouth hardening on the acknowledgement. ‘I have to: there’s nobody else to do it.’

However, Sander’s world was feeling like an evermore hostile environment in which his every past sin came back to haunt him, many times. He was bleakly aware that he had not shone in adversity when Tally had fallen accidentally pregnant after they had been seeing each other for only a few weeks. The resentful edge of immaturity and the troubled childhood that had prevented him from accepting his new parenting role with enthusiasm had lingered with devastating results. He had kept his distance, preserving his detachment for the sake of his pride, and when the worst had happened it had proved too late in the day to turn the clock back and change anything.

Even through the solid thickness of the door Tally could hear the faint sound of the baby’s heart-wrenching cries. Although the nanny had undoubtedly taken the child upstairs, she could still hear the little girl. Or was she simply imagining the fact that she could still hear the baby crying? Tally wondered worriedly. After all, she had already discovered that her imagination was boundless when sleep had plunged her back into the nightmares that had once haunted her. Her teeth gritted, her adrenalin jumping to sky-high levels at those cries, setting up a dim mocking echo in her ears. She wanted to run and keep on running but something steel hard inside her refused to give way to that craven urge. Any temptation to show weakness in Sander’s vicinity had to be fought. Even if it killed her she would stay on at Roxburn Manor.

‘I didn’t even know you were planning to join me at this house, never mind bringing that child with you,’ Tally condemned angrily. ‘I’d never have agreed to leave London if I’d realised what awaited me here!’

Sander shifted a fluid brown hand as if to forestall that censure. ‘I didn’t think about that angle. I’m sorry. My only objective was to help you …’

‘How can you help me? You’re my problem!’ Tally flung at him in a seething rage, glaring at him, her marmalade-coloured hair bouncing against her flushed cheekbones as sh

e jerked an emphatic hand to underline that point. ‘I wouldn’t be running away from the press and their horrible nosy questions if it wasn’t for you and your behaviour!’

Lean strong face clenched hard with self-discipline, Sander veiled his hot, golden gaze and squared his broad shoulders in resolute silence. He wanted to walk out, jump into the helicopter and go back to his office, where his best efforts invariably paid off with a profit. He was bloody marvellous at making money. He knew that, knew too that many women would regard it as his most appealing trait. For the first time he wished that diamonds were a currency that Tally appreciated. But when she had left a safe full of them behind when she’d walked out on their marriage, he had got the message that jewellery was no big deal for her. Tally expected more intangible and meaningful things from him. He just wasn’t sure that he had whatever that was within him to give. And, unhappily, he didn’t have the words to explain that lack to her either.

The smouldering silence of their mutual dissatisfaction was interrupted by the housekeeper inviting them through to the dining room for dinner Tally toyed with the idea of asking if she could eat upstairs in her room but she didn’t want to act the demanding diva when she had no idea how much assistance the older woman might have in the household. Soft, full pink lips flattening with strain, she took a seat with an air of discomfiture in the stiflingly formal dining room.

‘Why did you invite me here?’ she asked after a young woman wearing an overall had served them with soup. ‘If your arrival means that you think I’m accepting this situation—’

‘Hardly,’ Sander fielded that suggestion with a coolly raised ebony brow. ‘I didn’t want you struggling to cope with media intrusion when it was my fault that you had become a target. I thought you would get peace here.’

The soup was carrot and coriander and delicious. Tally wondered if it would warm the cold place inside her but reckoned that would take a blowtorch. ‘When did you buy this house?’