Taken aback by her defiance, Nik drew in a fractured breath, his hard bone structure rigid beneath his golden skin. Only the approach of Spyros Manoulis and the necessity of the bride and groom taking their seats at the top table forced Nik to let that assurance go unchallenged.
Olympia was surprised to register that she felt decidedly smug. Had Nik thought he had married a doormat he could wipe his feet on whenever he liked? Some things—well, plenty of things, Nik would discover he could not force. And he wouldn't like that. No, indeed, he wouldn't like that discovery at all. Even when Olympia had been head over heels in love with Nik Cozakis, she had recognised his innate conviction in his own essential male superiority. With blithe ease Nik had simply assumed that he could lay down the law and that she would naturally accept that he knew best in every way and in every situation.
'I really prefer you without make-up,' he had once told her. 'The natural look...'
She had got more subtle, but she had kept on wearing it.
'You're too young to go to clubs, under-age for alcohol as well,' he had reminded her, with an infuriating lack of sympathy. 'Your grandfather wouldn't approve, so you'll have to stay home.'
'I'll got out to a club with Katerina then.'
'You can forget that idea!' Nik had told her instantaneously.
And so they had had their one and only row, hours before the final break-up.
And then, encouraged by Katerina, Olympia had broken in on the boys' night out and what had she found? She tensed, bitter recollection nipping at her. She had found out exactly why her fiancé hadn't wanted her around, cramping his style...
After the long meal was over, Olympia was swept onto the floor by Nik to start off the dancing.
'I thought we'd be smashing plates by this stage...tradition and all that,' Olympia heard herself say snidely.
'One more crack of that nature...' His deep dark drawl sizzled above her head.
'And you'll what?' she breathed, not liking the sound of her own voice, but in the grip of an uncontrollable need to scratch and draw blood.
'You'll find out.'
'Promises... promises... such a shame you were never very good at keeping them!' It was as if Olympia's tongue had developed a life all of its own.
Long lean fingers curved to the nape of her neck, tipping her head back. Smouldering golden eyes blazed down into hers. And Nik caught her up into his arms and took her mouth with a dark, passionate force that went to her head like a drowning surge of alcohol. Taken by surprise, she had no time to put up the smallest defence and the world spun round her at dizzy speed.
The deep thrust of his tongue into her sensitive mouth imitated a far more basic possession. His erotic mastery took her by storm. Her heart-rate rocketed, her pulses leapt, and every inch of her quivering body was engulfed in fiery responsive heat. A need as relentless as it was cruel tore at her with shattering efficiency, leaving her weak and trembling, wholly at the mercy of the physical craving he had unleashed
As the music came to an end Nik threw back his head and slowly peeled her hands from his shoulders. Brilliant dark eyes scanned her dazed face. 'I like it when you cling, Olympia.'
Gripped by a storm of sheer self-loathing, Olympia forgot that they had an audience and stalked away, only to find the escape from the now crowded dance floor blocked by Nik's younger brother.
'It's time I got better acquainted with my new sister,' Peri told her as he folded her lightly into his arms. 'Peri, I...'
The young Greek gazed down at her with surprisingly serious eyes. 'I'm sorry my parents are spoiling your wedding day.'
Utterly taken aback, Olympia looked up at him in real discomfiture.
Peri shook his dark head. 'I can't get over the way they're behaving and I want you to know that I don't feel the same way.'
‘Thank you,' Olympia muttered awkwardly.
'But I'd be grateful if you'd tell me what's going on...'
'Going on?'
'Come on, Oily,' Peri urged, employing the nickname he had tagged her with as a boy. 'I was a kid ten years ago but I'm not now. Why is my cousin Katerina sidling about looking shifty all of a sudden, and why all this crazy secrecy about what split you and Nik up back then?'
'Secrecy?' Olympia gulped, jolted by that faintly scornful reference to Katerina, not to mention the bald question which had followed. 'Looking shifty' was a remarkably good match of Olympia's opinion of Katerina. She had not enjoyed being forced to watch the other woman put on that convincing show of shy uncertainty in front of Nik.
'I'd also like to know why my parents are embarrassing the hell out of me today. But, more than anything else, I'd like to know why Nik is standing back and allowing them to treat you as they have.'
'Maybe your parents just don't approve of my background.' Olympia was desperate to head him off, and belatedly grateful that Nik had forewarned her. Naturally Peri was curious to learn what lay behind so much bad feeling in his own family circle, but she wished he hadn't chosen to open the subject with her.
'They're not out of the dark, Oily,' the younger man reproved. 'My mother wasn't choking back tears all the way through the ceremony just because you were born out of wedlock!'
Olympia compressed her lips, feeling she could have done without that news.
'And considering how she felt about Gisele Bonner being Nik's long-term squeeze, her attitude surprises me even more,' Peri confided, patently unaware that he might be referring to a relationship she had not known about.
Gisele Bonner. The name meant nothing to Olympia, but she somehow knew that she wouldn't forget it again in a hurry. Tilting back her head, she looked up at Peri and said with a cool she was far from feeling, 'You know, Peri...it's really not that unusu
al for parents to be disappointed with their new daughter-in-law.'
'You're stonewalling me,' Peri complained, unimpressed 'But I warn you. I don't give up easily.'
'And I don't surrender my bride that easily, little brother,' Nik interposed, curving a long arm to Olympia's taut spine and detaching her from the younger man with ease.
Flushed and stiff, Olympia held herself back from Nik as he spun her away from Peri.
'Peri talks a mile a minute...and he's got no discretion,'| Nik remarked curtly.
Olympia was aware of his tension but unable to understand its source. If it hadn't seemed such a ridiculous idea she might have wondered what Nik hadn't wanted her to hear 'He wasn't indiscreet,' she said, and she meant it.
After all, poor Peri was even more out of touch with events than he realised. He didn't know his brother's marriage was a business deal, and a normal bride would have known of any lengthy relationship previously enjoyed by her new husband. Gisele Bonner, Olympia thought helplessly again, her soft, full mouth compressing as she grew rigid as a stick of rock in the circle of Nik's arms. Probably a blonde. Nik liked blondes. Long-legged beautiful blondes, with big blue eyes and not a lot of clothes coverage, she recalled, in her mind's eye recalling the Italian model she had seen him with so many years before.
‘Excuse me...' Olympia said flatly, suddenly registering that she was still in desperate need of some breathing space. Before Nik could guess her intention, she had slid out of his arms yet again and walked off the dance floor to head for the cloakroom. But she only actually got within ten feet of that potential sanctuary before yet another unwelcome event took place.
'Olympia?' Slender and petite in her stylish green suit, Katerina Pallas stepped right into her path.
Shaken, and angered by such a direct approach, Olympia murmured tautly, 'What do you want?'
'We used to be such close friends,' Katerina sighed in a plaintive little-girl voice, looking hurt.