The Marakaios Marriage (The Marakaios Brides 1)

Antonios’s expression tightened and he turned back to the road. ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said, and they didn’t speak for the rest of the journey.

Two hours later they’d left the highway for the narrow, twisting lane that curved its way between the mountains of Giona and Parnassus. They came around a bend and Villa Marakaios lay before them, nestled in a valley between the mountains, its many whitewashed buildings gleaming brightly under the afternoon sun.

Antonios drove down the twisting road towards the villa, his eyes narrowed against the sun, his mouth a hard, grim line.

As they drove through the gates he turned to the left, surprising her, for the front of the villa, with its many gleaming steps and impressive portico, was before them. Instead, Antonios drove around the back of the complex to a small whitewashed house with an enclosed courtyard and latticed shutters painted a cheerful blue. It looked, Lindsay thought in weary bemusement, like the villa she’d once imagined in her naive daydreams. A honeymoon house.

‘We can stay here,’ Antonios said tersely, and he killed the engine. ‘It’s used as a guesthouse, but it’s empty now.’

‘What?’ Lindsay stared at him in surprise. Last time they’d stayed in the main villa with all the family and staff; only Leonidas had his own place. Since his father’s death, Antonios had been appointed the CEO of Marakaios Enterprises and essentially lord of the manor.

Now he shrugged and got out of the car. ‘It will make it easier for us to maintain the pretence if we are not so much in the public eye.’ He went around to the boot of the car for their cases, not looking at her as he added, ‘And perhaps it will be easier for you.’

Lindsay stared at him, his dark head bent as he hefted their suitcases and then started walking towards the villa. He was being thoughtful, she realized. And he’d given credence to what she’d told him, if just a little.

‘Thank you,’ she murmured and with a wary, uncertain hope burgeoning inside her she followed him into the villa.

CHAPTER FOUR

ANTONIOS PUT THE suitcases in the villa’s one bedroom, tension knotting between his shoulders. Coming back to Villa Marakaios always gave him a sense of impending responsibility and pressure, the needs and concerns of the family and business descending on him like a shroud the moment he drove through the gates. But it was a shroud he wore willingly and a duty he accepted with pride, no matter what the cost.

He could hear Lindsay moving behind him, walking with the quiet grace and dignity she’d always possessed.

‘Why don’t you rest?’ he said as he turned around. Lindsay stood in the doorway, her pale hair floating around her face in a silvery-golden cloud, her eyes wide and clear, yet also troubled. ‘Everyone is coming for dinner tonight,’ he continued. ‘I need to see to some business. I’ll come back before we have to leave. But I suppose you don’t mind me working all hours now, do you?’

The less they saw each other, the better. Yet he still couldn’t keep a feeling of bitterness or maybe even hurt from needling him when she nodded, and wordlessly he walked past her and out of the villa.

He walked across the property to the offices housed separately from the family’s living quarters, in a rambling whitewashed building overlooking the Marakaios groves that stretched to the horizon, rows upon rows of stately olive trees with their gnarled branches, each neatly pruned and tended, now just coming into flower.

He paused for a moment on the threshold of the building, steeling himself for the demands that would assail him the moment he walked in the door. Ten years after his father had told him of the extent of Marakaios Enterprises’ debt, he’d finally brought the business to an even keel—but it had taken just about everything he had, both emotionally and physically.

Now he greeted his PA, Alysia, accepted a sheaf of correspondence and then strode into his office, perversely glad, for once, to immerse himself in paperwork and answering emails and not think of Lindsay.

Except he did think of Lindsay; she was like a ghost inside his mind, haunting his thoughts with both the good memories and the bad. The week in New York—that intense, incredible week when they’d shared everything.

And yet nothing, because he was realizing afresh just how much of a stranger she was.

In New York he’d thought he’d known her. She’d told him about her research, and he’d watched how animated she became when she talked about twin primes and Fermat’s Last Theorem and Godel’s proof for the existence of God. He hadn’t really understood any of it, but he’d loved seeing her passion for her subject, intelligence and interest shining in her silver-grey eyes.

She’d told him about her father, too, who had died just a few weeks before they met. She’d cried then and he’d comforted her, drawing her into his arms, fitting her body around his as he’d tenderly wiped the tears from her face.

He thought about the first time they’d made love, how her eyes had gone so wide when he’d slid inside her and she’d said in wonder, ‘It’s like the most perfect equation,’ which had made him laugh even as pleasure overtook them both. With Lindsay he’d felt happier than he ever had before. He’d felt right, complete in a way that made him realize just how much he’d been missing.

And then he recalled the emptiness that had swooped through him when he’d talked to her on the phone and she’d told him in that lifeless voice that it was all a mistake.

‘Welcome back.’

Antonios looked up from his laptop to see his brother, Leonidas, lounging in the doorway of his office. Fourteen months younger, half an inch taller and a little leaner, Leonidas had been mistaken more than once for his twin. They’d been close as children, united in various boyish escapades, but since Antonios had become CEO the gulf between them had widened, and Antonios’s vow of secrecy to his father made it impossible to bridge.

No one is to know, Antonios. No one but you. I couldn’t bear it.

‘Thank you,’ he said now with a nod to Leonidas. He tried to offer his brother a smile, but the memories of Lindsay that had assailed him just now were still too poignant, too painful.

‘Good trip?’ Leonidas asked, one eyebrow cocked, and not for the first time Antonios wondered how much his brother knew, or at least guessed, about him and Lindsay.

‘Fine,’ he said briskly. ‘Short. I thought about stopping in New York to see the new clients but there was no time.’

‘I could do it,’ Leonidas offered and Antonios shrugged.

‘I’ll travel back to New York next week, with Lindsay. I’ll see them then.’

Leonidas’s expression turned neutral as he gave a careless nod. ‘So you’re both returning to America in just one week?’

‘Lindsay has research to finish.’

‘I thought she could do it here.’

Antonios shrugged, hating the deception he was forced to maintain. First with his father, and now this. He’d accused Lindsay of lying to him, but he was the greater liar.

Soon, he told himself. Soon enough he would come clean. All too soon, when his mother was past knowing. The thought made him close his eyes briefly, and he snapped them open. ‘She has to wrap up things with her house,’ he said dismissively. ‘You know how it is.’

Although of course Leonidas didn’t know how it was. He was a determined bachelor and besides his private villa here he kept an apartment in Athens. Their father had appointed him as Head of European Operations before he’d died, and since then Leonidas had spent most of his time travelling to their various clients in Europe, working on new accounts because Antonios didn’t want him to see the old ones. Couldn’t let him know how close they’d come to losing it all.

‘So she’ll return when?’ Leonidas asked and Antonios forced himself to shrug.

‘We haven’t decided on a date,’ he answered coolly. ‘Now, don’t you have work to do? I just saw an email from the Lyon restaurant group. They’re concerned about their supply.’

‘I’m on it,’ Leonidas answered, his voice terse, and he turned from the office.

Antonios sank back in his chair, raking his hands through his hair. Maintaining this deception was going to be even harder than he’d realized. And when he came clean...he burned to think of the disbelief and pity he’d face from his siblings.

Burned to think that it had come to this, and why? Because Lindsay never loved you. And you didn’t know her well enough to love her like you thought you did.

Grimacing, he turned back to his laptop. He’d wasted enough time thinking about Lindsay today.

* * *

Lindsay managed to sleep for a couple of hours, waking muzzy-headed and disorientated to the sound of someone knocking on the door.

She stumbled out of bed, reaching for a robe hanging from the bathroom door to cover herself; it had been too warm to sleep in anything but her underwear. A maid whose face she vaguely recognized was standing outside, a man behind her carrying several suitcases.

‘What...?’ Lindsay began, confused and still only half awake.

‘Kyrios Marakaios wanted your clothes to be brought here,’ the maid explained in halting English. Lindsay knew only a few words of Greek. ‘He asked for me to help put them away.’