The Cozakis Bride

Olympia was so shattered she could barely think straight. I'm pregnant. I'm pregnant by him now, she kept on thinking dizzily, panic threatening. When she heard the whirring, clacking beat of a helicopter getting louder overhead, she had to force herself to leave the bedroom; their guests were ar­riving. As she went downstairs, she pressed a tremulous hand to her pounding brow. She breathed in very slowly and deeply. She had to get a hold of herself fast, because there was no way, absolutely no way, that she could confront Nik with other people around.

Elegant in her peacock-blue shift dress, Olympia stared across the stone terrace at Nik as he approached the helipad to welcome the arrivals. In a lightweight suit the colour of honey, superbly tailored to outline his broad shoulders and long, long legs, Nik looked sensational. Her heart lurched. A male possessed of devastating attraction who might well have no more sensibility than an animal in the mating season when it came to satisfying his own sexual inclinations. Undersexed he wasn't. She knew that for herself. Her husband, her lover. Time she came back to the real world again, she decided numbly...

Nik Cozakis was a Greek tycoon. One of a rarefied breed of very rich and powerful men, little given to the virtues of self-denial and fidelity. On the very day Nik had blackmailed her into agreeing to his marital terms he had said with cool satisfaction, 'I also get a wife who really knows how to be­have herself, a wife who never, ever questions where I go or what I do because we have a business deal, not a marriage.' Just when had she chosen to forget those horribly revealing words of warning? At what point had she chosen to ditch all memory of that ruthless blackmail and those threats?

Her tummy tied itself into knots and her fingers closed in tightly on themselves. Only as Markos Stapoulos and his wife emerged from their helicopter did Olympia move forward to stand by Nik's side. Markos was a short, thickset cheerful bear of a man, already going grey, Samantha an effervescent Scottish redhead.

Olympia was grateful for the other couple's enlivening presence. She needed time, time in which to get a grip on her flailing emotions. On several occasions she became con­scious of Nik's dark, questioning gaze on her and she cursed his perceptive powers. She couldn't bring herself to look at him, and no doubt he had noticed the brittle quality she could hear in her own voice as she endeavoured to respond appro­priately to Samantha's friendly chatter.

After lunch, the two men vanished into Nik's office.

'Business, everything is always business with Greek men!' Samantha shook her head in rueful acceptance.

'How did you meet Markos?' Olympia asked, just a little of her highwire tension evaporating with Nik's removal from the scene.

'I was a nurse in the London clinic where he had his ap­pendix out. Between you and me and the gatepost, he was terrified! That was three years ago.' Smiling, Samantha re­laxed back into her well-upholstered seat. 'You have no idea how much more comfortable I feel here now that Nik has a wife too.'

'You must've met Gisele Bonner,' Olympia heard herself say, and it was as much of a shock to her to hear that com­ment escape as it was to her companion, who stilled in sur­prise. 'Please.. Just forget I said that. I really wasn't fishing.'' Olympia hastened to assert.

'No, you can say anything to me. I do understand how you must feel.' With an air of ready sympathy which increased Olympia's embarrassment, Samantha leant forward and be­gan to talk in a confidential manner. 'Ex-girlfriends who look as stunning as Gisele and who continue to hog the headlines long after their sell-by date are hard to swallow. Of course you don't like that. The first time we met Gisele, Markos was mesmerised...I could have strangled him! I didn't speak to him for a week!'

Olympia felt torn into two, both wanting and not wanting to hear more.

'Gisele's clever, and very ambitious. She got her claws into Nik and hung on in there even when his attention strayed!' her companion divulged.

Olympia nodded, wondering in dulled horror whether she was supposed to be cheered by the news that Nik hadn't been faithful to his mistress either.

'Gisele knows how to please a man. That was the secret of her staying power.' Samantha pulled a face. 'Have you ever met a Greek male who didn't love having his ego stroked by a woman who hangs on his every word and treats him like a god?'

Olympia shook her head and closely studied her tightly linked hands. 'You really shouldn't be worrying about her, Olympia.'

'I'm not.' Olympia was beyond worrying. Having learnt the secret of Gisele's success, she knew her marriage was over. The chances of her treating Nik like a god in the near future were slim to none.

'Nik lives very much in the limelight and Gisele adored sharing it with him. It did a lot for her career. I bet she was behind that ridiculous story printed in that downmarket tab­loid last month,' the other woman continued with visible dis­taste. 'But who on earth would believe that Nik was with her when you and Nik had only just gone off on your honey­moon?'

'Who?' Olympia echoed with a sickly smile. Yet that was exactly what Nik had done. After one night, he had aban­doned his bride in favour of his mistress. A tiny tremor ran through her tense frame.

'That kind of horrible lie appearing in newsprint makes me grateful that Markos and I aren't glitzy enough to be a target for the paparazzi.' Samantha sighed.

At that point Nik strode in through the doors standing wide on the stone terrace. Olympia jerked in dismay and liquid spilled from the glass in her hand, staining her dress. 'Oh, heck...' she mumbled, rising hurriedly from her seat with averted eyes. 'Excuse me, I'll have to change.'

'We've all been invited to join a wedding party in the village,' Nik imparted.

'I'd love that,' Samantha responded warmly. 'But did Mar­kos mention that we have to leave by seven?'

Slipping quietly from the room, Olympia breathed in deep. A wedding? For a dangerous split-second, the crushing pres­sure of the emotional turmoil she was struggling to contain threatened to break its boundaries. Like a living nightmare, she saw warning flashes of what might happen if she lost control. She would shout, she would scream, she would break things. In response to the rising level of her distress, she felt violent. Angry, bitter, outraged. Why couldn't he love her? Why couldn't he love her the way she loved him? Would this day, this enforced pretence of harmony for the benefit of their guests never end? she wondered wretchedly. Upstairs, she wrenched an elaborate backless black cock­tail dress with a bolero jacket from a hanger, knowing that she would be expected to dress up for such an occasion. Having been welcomed ashore by a party of villagers when they arrived the night before, Olympia was under no illusions as to Nik's status on the island of Kritos. If Gisele treated Nik Cozakis like a god, the islanders treated him like their king!

He had made island life viable for another generation. He had rebuilt the school, brought in an extra teacher, dredged the silted-up harbour and persuaded a doctor to take up res­idence in the state-of-the-art surgery he had supplied as a lure. He had also allowed the development of a small exclu­sive resort on the other side of the island, which was provid­ing employment for many of the younger people. He had done more for Kritos in five years than his father had done in his entire lifetime. And, in true heroic tradition, Olympia thought bitterly, Nik had personally told her none of those things. Markos Stapoulos had let those facts drop over lunch. But then Markos had always hugely admired Nik.

'Olympia...'

Olympia froze and slowly turned. Nik leant back against the bedroom door to close it. His lean, strong face taut, black eyes chillingly intent, he surveyed her. 'What the hell is the matter with you?'

'I beg your pardon?'

'Don't be facetious!' Nik countered with biting derision. 'You can't treat me like the invisible man without making our guests uncomfortable. Hospitality is a serious matter to all Greeks, a service we undertake with pride and pleasure. I can only be ashamed of a wife behaving like a sulky little brat!'

Olympia shivered and clenched her teeth together.

'And don't you dare give me that

little fishwife look!' Nik growled, incensed.

Burning colour mantling her cheeks, her hands coiled into tight, hurting fists, Olympia murmured thickly, 'Maybe you should have asked Gisele Bonner to be your hostess instead.'

'You have a point. Gisele never let me down in front of my friends,' Nik responded, without a second of hesitation.

'That was really low, Nik...' Olympia whispered unstead­ily, shaken even in the mood she was in by that smooth retaliation.

His stubborn jawline hardened. 'No woman treats me as you have today. We had a stupid argument and I apologised sincerely for my part in it. I have no time and even less patience for the way you're behaving now!'

Stiff-backed, Olympia spun away to lift the bolero lying on the bed. 'Go to hell...' she said succinctly.

A hand like an iron vice closed over her taut shoulder and turned her back. Nik gazed down at her with eyes as hot as golden flames. 'Christos...do you have a death wish?' he grated incredulously. 'Or is it just that you don't like your own sex? Am I getting the big freeze because Samantha was bantering with me over lunch?'