The Secrets She Carried

Cristo spun her round to run down the zip on her gown. ‘No, I thought very carefully about that decision. I didn’t have to live with you to play a part in the twins’ lives and my financial support would have taken care of any problems you had. No, I asked you to marry me because I wanted you in my life every day.’

Smiling widely at that assurance, a glow of pleasure lighting up her eyes, Erin turned back to help him out of his jacket. ‘And there I was thinking that you had only married me because you thought it was the practical thing to do!’

Cristo curved long fingers to her cheekbones and groaned. ‘I know it was a useless proposal. I should never have asked you when we were in bed but I couldn’t hold back any longer. Wives are a lot harder to lose than girlfriends and I needed to know that you were mine again for ever, pethi mou.’

‘I like the sound of for ever,’ Erin savoured, shimmying out of her lace gown and standing in her frivolous silk and lace bra and panties, a blue garter adorning one slim stocking-clad thigh.

‘I like the underpinnings,’ Cristo teased, fiery dark eyes welded to her scantily clad figure as he appraised her with lingering intensity. ‘But I’ll like you out of them even better and after a week of celibacy it’s overkill.’

‘Is it?’ Her brows lifted, her uncertainty visible.

Laughing, Cristo picked her up and dropped her down on the gloriously comfortable bed. ‘You look gorgeous but I did notice that the separate bedrooms made your mother more comfortable in our home, latria mou.’

‘I wanted tonight to be special,’ Erin whispered, running a possessive hand up a shirt-clad arm.

He sat up and discarded his shirt with alacrity, revealing a hard brown torso taut and roped with muscle. She spread her fingers there instead, revelling in the solid reassuring beat of his heart. ‘I forgot to tell you that I loved you.’

‘And as punishment you have to tell me at least ten times every day,’ Cristo delivered, lowering his head to claim a long passionate kiss that sent her hands up to clasp his head. ‘You know, I thought it might take you much longer to forgive me for not being there when you needed me … and even worse marrying another woman.’

Erin smiled. ‘No, I know you’ve been through tough times too. What I didn’t understand is why you were suddenly doing all the romantic stuff you never did before. Do you remember what our first ever row was about?’

‘I forgot Valentine’s Day once we were dating. Well, actually I didn’t. I’d always avoided the mushy stuff as it raises unfair expectations and I was embarrassed about the one I sent you before you agreed to go out with me.’

‘A card?’ Erin scorned. ‘A card would rouse expectations?’

Cristo winced. ‘I thought that sort of thing, like meeting each other’s families, should be kept for someone you’re serious about. We had only been together eleven months and twenty three days …’

Her eyes widened. ‘You counted how long we were together?’

‘I was always a maths whizz,’ Cristo fielded deadpan.

Erin was impressed. She glanced around her candlelit fl

ower-bedecked bower and smiled happily at what that display said: she had finally made the grade for the mushy stuff! He would never ignore Valentine’s Day again. She gazed up at him, enthralled by his lean, darkly handsome features and the tender look in his beautiful dark eyes.

‘I missed you so much!’ he breathed suddenly. ‘Something would remind me and then, boom, all these images would flood my head. And then I would remember what I thought you had done and get really angry that I was thinking about you again.’

Erin reached up and kissed him. ‘That time is gone. Now we’ve got something better and stronger, something that will last—’

‘For ever,’ he slotted in with determination.

Her eyes slid shut as he claimed her parted lips in another hungry, demanding kiss. Heat spread inside her with tingling, burning energy and she gave herself up to desire and happiness without any sense of fear at all.

Two years later, Erin hosted the grand opening of Cristo’s first spa hotel on Thesos. Built beside a secluded beach and surrounded by lush pine forest, it provided a back-to-nature retreat with luxury on tap for the discerning traveller, and as the latest must-have place to go it was already fully booked six months in advance. As Cristo had been held up, Vasos and Appollonia Denes were by her side.

A sea change had taken place in her relationship with the older couple. The passage of time had soothed the bad memories of the past and Erin’s natural resentment. Appollonia had grown stronger and calmer and as she recovered from her excessive nervousness and fatal tendency to apologise for everything had confided that her greatest fear had always been that Cristo would discover what she had done and refuse to forgive her. Once the secret was out, Appollonia had had to deal with her guilt, and forging a healthy, normal relationship with Erin and the twins had gone a long way to achieving that.

Vasos had ultimately accepted a loan from Cristo to save his business but had insisted that Cristo accept a partnership in the firm, an arrangement that had left both men with their pride and principles intact. Cristo had been overjoyed that Erin’s intervention had wrought a change in his foster father’s stubborn outlook.

For the first year of her marriage Erin had spent a great deal of time checking out the spa facilities in her husband’s hotel empire and travelling a great deal. Jenny and the twins had often accompanied her while her mother was a frequent visitor to Thesos. During the second year Erin had begun supervising the final touches to the new island spa, which was providing much needed work for the locals and had already prompted the opening of several tourist-type businesses in the village.

Sheathed in a shimmering silver evening gown, she posed for photographers and waved back as Sam and his former secretary, Janice, raised their glasses to salute her from across the room. Sam Morton was about to embark on a worldwide cruise with his recently acquired bride. Erin smiled warmly at the other couple, currently engaged in chatting to her mother, Deidre, thinking that she had been blind not to appreciate that Janice cared about Sam and that her removal from the scene would make it easier for Sam to see Janice in a different light. Sam had had to retire before he could appreciate how much he missed Janice’s company and a friendly dinner date to catch up on news had eventually resulted in his second marriage.

‘You look amazing, Mrs Donakis,’ a rich dark drawl purred above her head as a possessive hand curved to her hip.

Erin whirled round. ‘Cristo, when did you get back?’

‘Half an hour ago. I had the quickest shower and change on record,’ he confided. ‘That’s it, though. I won’t be off on another trip for at least six weeks.’