The Marakaios Marriage (The Marakaios Brides 1)

‘Then why won’t you give me more responsibility, Antonios? Damn it, I deserve it. I’ve worked hard these last ten years—’

‘What responsibility do you want?’ Antonios snapped, irritation masking his guilt. ‘To sign some tedious paperwork, go over a few boring columns?’

‘If it’s so boring, why won’t you let me do it?’ Leonidas countered.

Antonios stared at him, hating that they were having this confrontation and yet knowing it had been a long time coming. Fearing he couldn’t hide forever. And wouldn’t it feel good to come clean, to admit what he’d been covering up, sharing the burden? Lindsay had been honest about her own fears and secrets. Why couldn’t he be honest about his?

The desire to unburden himself was so strong he nearly trembled with the force of it. Longed to give Leonidas all the responsibility he craved and more, to walk away from it all, finally free of the shackles of Marakaios Enterprises that had bound him for so long...

Theos, what was he thinking? Appalled, Antonios took a step back, as if he could distance himself from his own thoughts. He could not betray his father that way. It would be a betrayal of himself, of his sense of duty and honour that was at the core of who he was.

‘Be happy with what I’ve offered,’ he told Leonidas flatly. ‘Because it’s all I ever will.’

With a muffled curse Leonidas strode from the room. Antonios pushed back from his desk, striding to the window that overlooked the olive groves. His mind seethed with too many thoughts.

He had never seen his brother so angry before, seeming so resentful of the control Antonios exerted. He’d sensed it, but Leonidas had never spoken so plainly before. Or maybe he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge how unhappy his brother was, just as he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge how unhappy Lindsay had been. Blind, wilfully blind, as always.

Antonios pressed a fist to his forehead, longing for so much to be different. For his father not to have sworn him to secrecy. For him to have realized the unhappiness around him and sought to change it.

And if only he could change things now. Change things with Leonidas. Change things with Lindsay.

Wearily, he dropped his fist and turned back to his desk. Sometimes change was impossible.

* * *

After talking with Daphne, Lindsay went back into the villa, determined to make one more attempt to help with the party preparations. Parthenope and Xanthe were in the salon, debating where to put a display of photographs; Lindsay watched them for a moment before coming over to examine the photos of the Marakaios family throughout the years.

She could pick out Antonios easily—a dark-haired, solemn little boy. For a second she imagined what their child might have looked like and felt an unsettling twist of longing for something she hadn’t even truly considered before.

Antonios had wanted to start trying for children right away, but Lindsay had put him off. Attempting to cope with her new life in Greece had been hard enough without adding pregnancy to the mix.

And it was still hard. Too hard to continue. Too hard to try again.

She turned to watch Xanthe and Parthenope continue to wrangle over the display board, their voices raised, their hands moving wildly.

Xanthe caught her looking and put her hands on her hips. ‘Do you have a suggestion, Lindsay?’ she asked, a faint note of challenge in her voice. Parthenope turned to look at her, too, and even though it was just the two of them Lindsay felt a sweat break out between her shoulder blades.

Damn it, she did not want to go into panic mode right now.

‘I’d put it in the corner,’ she said, and Xanthe’s eyebrows shot higher.

‘People won’t see it there.’

‘It will be in the way anywhere else,’ Lindsay countered quietly, ‘and a person’s gaze is generally drawn to the vertex of an angle, especially a right angle.’ She saw the look of incomprehension on the two women’s faces and felt herself flush. ‘The walls of the room form an angle,’ she explained in a half mumble. ‘A right angle, with the corner as its vertex.’

They just stared at her, completely nonplussed, and Lindsay turned away. ‘Never mind,’ she muttered, and everything in her jolted with surprise when she heard Antonios’s voice.

‘A mathematical proof for putting photographs in the corner. Brilliant.’ He came into the room, his smiling gaze trained on Lindsay, rooting her to the spot. ‘I knew I needed a reason to have the photo of me as an eight-year-old with knobbly knees put in a dark corner.’

‘You could backlight the display board,’ Lindsay offered, pleasure rippling through her as Antonios joined her, looping one arm around her shoulders. ‘Your knobbly knees could still be on view.’

‘You did have knobbly knees, Antonios,’ Parthenope remarked as she peered at one of the photos. ‘Are they still so knobbly? You always wear business suits now.’

‘I’ll never tell,’ Antonios answered, and slid Lindsay a teasing glance. ‘And I trust my wife will keep my secret.’

‘My lips are sealed,’ Lindsay promised, but inwardly she reeled. Why was Antonios acting so...lover-like?

Then it hit her. He was pretending, for his sisters’ sake. Duh. How could she have forgotten it for even a moment? How could she have wanted something real?

She slipped out from under Antonios’s arm. ‘I don’t think my mathematical proofs are really needed here,’ she said with an apologetic smile for Parthenope and Xanthe. ‘I’ll just head back to our villa.’

‘I’ll join you,’ Antonios answered smoothly. ‘I’d like to rest before dinner.’

Lindsay saw Xanthe and Parthenope exchange knowing looks and inwardly cringed. Outside, she started walking quickly towards the villa and Antonios easily matched her pace.

‘It’s too hard, Antonios,’ she burst out. ‘Pretending to everyone. It feels wrong.’

‘I know.’

This stopped her short. ‘Then shouldn’t we come clean? Wouldn’t it be easier?’

‘For whom? Us? Think of my mother, Lindsay.’

Lindsay bit her lip. ‘I think your mother knows. Or at least guesses.’

Antonios turned to her sharply. ‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because she spoke to me this morning. Privately. And some of the things she said made me think she knows. She knew I was unhappy, anyway.’

Antonios’s mouth thinned. ‘Which was more than I knew.’

Lindsay stopped to lay a hand on his arm. ‘What happened before, we should both put behind us, Antonios. I know we were both to blame. We can accept our guilt and move on.’

Something flared in his eyes. ‘Move on?’

‘I mean, you know...move on with our lives,’ Lindsay stumbled through the explanation. A blush heated her cheeks as she thought what Antonios might have assumed she meant. To move on together.

Antonios didn’t answer, just stared at her for a long moment, his gaze seeming to both test and assess her. ‘Have dinner with me tonight,’ he said suddenly.

Lindsay stared at him in surprise. ‘I thought we were having dinner with everyone, at the main villa—’

‘No. Have dinner with just me. Alone.’ She searched his face, saw how intent and determined he looked. As determined as he had when he’d asked her out in New York, his playful banter not quite disguising his utter intent to have her go out with him, to have her fall in love with him. And she had. Oh, she had. She’d fallen for him so hard and fast her head had still been spinning a week later, when they’d landed in Greece.

And what did he want now? What did she even want him to want?

‘Antonios...’

‘Please,’ he said softly, and she was lost. As lost as she’d been when he’d given her that achingly whimsical smile of his and said, What would it take for you to have coffee with me?

And she’d grinned and said, A simple please would do.

And so he’d said it. Tears stung her eyes and she blinked them back, everything in her aching for what they’d had and lost.

And what they could have again?

Hope was such a dangerous thing.

‘All right,’ she whispered and Antonios’s answering smile reached right into her soul.

* * *

Antonios paced the living room as he waited for Lindsay to emerge from the bedroom for their dinner. Nerves coiled in his belly and anticipation sang in his blood. He’d planned everything, from the food they’d eat to where they’d eat it, the music that would be playing and the flowers on the table. He wanted this evening to be perfect, and focusing on all the details had kept him from thinking about all the things that could go wrong.

Like Lindsay telling him no.

But that wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t allow it to happen. He’d pulled himself back from the brink once before, by sheer force of will and a hell of a lot of hard work. He could do it again. He was, he knew, willing to work hard for his marriage. And it would begin tonight.

‘I’m ready.’

He turned to see Lindsay standing in the doorway, looking both uncertain and beautiful. She was dressed in a silvery, spangled sheath dress, her hair loose and tousled about her shoulders.

‘You look like a moonbeam,’ Antonios said and came forward to take her hands in his. ‘Or a Snow Queen, perhaps.’