Reluctant Mistress, Blackmailed Wife

They left the church by a rear entrance, their arrival and their departure having gone unremarked by anyone other than the official photographer, a film crew and the security team. A huge number of precautions had been taken to preserve the privacy of the day. The invitations had requested that the guests take no photographs. Every detail of the arrangements had been kept hush-hush, and the reception was being staged at Dove Hall, where security was very tight to keep all members of the press outside the boundaries of the park.

In the wedding car, Alexandros settled an elaborate box on her lap. ‘My wedding gift to you.’

Her green eyes sparked. ‘What is it? A set of platinum handcuffs?’

Impervious to the possible existence of a sting in that comment, Alexandros lifted her hand and planted a kiss on her palm. Brilliant dark golden eyes set beneath sleek ebony lashes flicked over her with a sexual heat that took her by surprise. ‘Would you like that, thespinis mou? But you’re very small, and your skin would bruise easily,’ he murmured huskily, lean brown fingers enclosing her slender wrist to emphasise the point. ‘Silk would be kinder to such fragile bones.’

She felt a beetroot blush wash over her fair complexion and snatched her hand free, her skin tingling from his caressing touch. ‘It was a joke…okay?’

‘We’ll see…Over the next eight weeks we will have time to explore a lot of uncharted territory.’

‘Eight weeks?’ Katie gasped, shock making her drop her cool, frosty front. ‘You’re planning to take two months away from the bank?’

‘It’s a special occasion.’ Alexandros tugged gently at a copper ringlet and let several more spill across his hand.

Suddenly she was feeling very much like an animated toy, being examined by a new owner, and her nervous tension raced up the scale at speed. When he found out that sex was not on the newly married menu, eight weeks would soon start feeling like seven weeks and six days too long. Now, however, was definitely not the time to make that announcement, for the very last thing she wanted to risk was the eruption of a row while they were surrounded by dozens of guests.

‘How much time did you take off when you married Ianthe?’ Katie heard herself ask with sudden curiosity.

A sharp silence fell and she held her breath.

‘A week. There was no element of choice. I was about to sit my final exams at university.’ His intonation was constrained, as if even talking about his first marriage was a painful challenge.

As well it might be to a male so reserved he hid all his emotions, Katie conceded unhappily. Wishing she hadn’t asked, she addressed her attention to the still unopened box on her lap and flipped up the lid with an unsteady hand. ‘Oh…my word…’ she whispered, blinded by the radiance of an emerald and diamond ring.

‘We didn’t have an engagement…I want to make up for the fact,’ Alexandros breathed gruffly.

Katie studied the ring, her hot gritty eyes glazing over with tears. Her heart felt as if it was cracking in two. In a sharp movement she closed the lid down again and stuffed the box back in his hand. ‘I don’t need a ring to remind me that you dumped me in Ireland!’

Alexandros almost groaned out loud. ‘Theos mou…that has nothing to do with this ring. Am I to live with these recriminations for ever?’

Katie stared woodenly out of the window.

‘I thought it was the wisest solution…I put what was best for you first.’

Katie slung him a withering glance. ‘Don’t kid yourself!’

‘After Ianthe…I wasn’t ready to make a commitment. I met you too soon. I felt guilty. You were very young and inexperienced—’

‘Since when did that influence you?’

‘You’re the one and only virgin I’ve ever slept with!’ Alexandros ground out furiously. ‘If I’d taken you out of Ireland with me, what would I have been supposed to do with you?’

Katie elevated a delicate coppery brow in unashamed challenge. ‘Oh, I’m sure you’d have thought of something.’

‘The only future I was likely to have offered you then was as my mistress…that’s why I ended it.’

‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done before?’ Katie misquoted with lofty sarcasm. ‘Why don’t you just admit the truth? I told you I loved you, and the truth was such a turn-off that you left the country!’

Alexandros found it disturbing that she should have that much insight into the way he operated—particularly when he had not understood his own reactions half so well at the time.

While he was making that acknowledgement, Katie was struck by the level of her own bitterness, and mortified by what she had just said. What on earth was she playing at? The past was dead and gone. Some things—and unwelcome declarations of devotion fell very much into the category—were more sensibly left buried and forgotten. Alexandros had had an affair with her while he had still been grieving for Ianthe and she ought to have come to terms with that by now.

Regret swept over her. In a movement that was as abrupt as her former rejection of the gift, Katie swiped back the ring box from him. Thirty seconds later, she slid the gorgeous jewel onto the appropriate finger. ‘Thank you…it’s gorgeous,’ she said, a tad flatly.

Alexandros was about to comment on that change of heart, and then decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was a very big day for her, and she had had virtually no time to prepare for it. Possibly she was just feeling emotional, he reasoned, resolving to be supportive and understanding. He offered her a drink, asked her if her mother and stepfather were enjoying their trip, and then stuck so rigorously to making polite conversation that they travelled all the way to Dove Hall without a single opportunity arising for her to voice one more controversial word.

The wedding party took up position in the hall and greeted the guests as they filed past into the ballroom. Katie finally espied Leanne, a highly visible figure in her rather brief cerise satin dress, and tensed, hoping that her friend would manage to avoid attracting the bridegroom’s notice. Sadly, it was not to be. Leanne, never one to hide her light or indeed anything else under a bushel, was determined to meet Alexandros. Stopping dead in front of him, she left Katie with no choice other than to make an introduction that she would have done just about anything to avoid.

‘Leanne Carson…’ Alexandros murmured, without any expression at all.

‘I played cupid for the two of you,’ the blue-eyed brunette proclaimed shamelessly. ‘I mean, if it hadn’t been for me, you and Katie might never have got together again! She was always very backward about coming forward.’

As Leanne passed on down the line, Katie could not bring herself to look at Alexandros. He inclined his proud dark head in a signal that brought Cyrus to his side, and a low-pitched exchange took place between the two men.

‘You can’t ask Leanne to leave when I invited her,’ Katie whispered fiercely under her breath, fearing that that was his intent. ‘I was going to tell you that she was here—’

‘No, you weren’t,’ Alexandros shot back, cool as ice water dropping on a sizzling hotplate. ‘You were hoping I wouldn’t notice her in the crowd, but vulgarity of that magnitude is hard to miss!’

‘What were you telling Cyrus?’

‘To watch her…and the silver.’

‘Thank you very much!’

Only when the last guests had arrived and they were about to enter the ballroom did Katie have the leisure to finally notice what she felt should have struck her the instant she entered the house. The huge portrait of Ianthe had been removed from above the main staircase and a pair of beautiful landscapes now hung in its place.

Thoroughly disconcerted by that development, she whispered, ‘What did you do with Ianthe’s portrait?’

The question made Alexandros glance at her in surprise. ‘I had it moved.’

Katie almost thanked him, but when it occurred to her that doing so would be tantamount to confessing how sensitive she had been to the presence of that portrait, she embraced an awkward sil

ence instead. Conscience told her that Ianthe had had every right to that place on the wall, and guilt writhed through her. How could she be so petty? Even so, she could not help but be impressed by her bridegroom’s forethought and consideration on her behalf.

Reunited with Toby and Connor, she played with her sons for a few minutes, until it was time for her to join the bridal party at the high table.