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CHAPTER SIX
‘YOU LOOK AMAZING!’ Vivi sighed as Winnie performed a twirl in front o
f the built-in cheval mirror on the wall of the luxury cabin.
It was a beautiful dress, fashioned of Venice lace and organza, cut to fit Winnie’s shapely figure like a glove. An enticing row of pearl buttons ran down her spine to her hip. The sweetheart neckline emphasised her sister’s curves while the mermaid style flared out from her knees with very real elegance and not with the kind of fullness of fabric that would have accentuated Winnie’s diminutive height.
‘We all do but, like all brides, Winnie takes the crown,’ Zoe murmured fondly. ‘I feel like pinching myself to see if this is real. Here we are on a fabulous yacht, cruising to our sister’s wedding on a private island... It’s like a dream or like suddenly being plunged into a movie.’
‘I wonder if you’ll feel quite so chirpy when it’s your wedding day,’ Vivi remarked with an edge of warning.
‘But we don’t have to worry about that. Grandad is going to whisk us all away again before we need to worry about consequences.’ Zoe’s bright confidence in Stamboulas Fotakis’s ability to work miracles was unconcealed. ‘Eros wanted to transport all of us to the island because he made the island a no-fly zone to keep the paparazzi from buzzing the wedding from above,’ she reminded her siblings. ‘And Grandad got around that change of plan by borrowing a pal’s massive yacht for the occasion.’
‘Yes, Grandad’s pretty wily,’ Winnie agreed, still studying her reflection, her heart beating so fast with nerves it felt as though it were thumping through her entire body like a ticking time bomb on countdown.
‘Pittee,’ Teddy told her, yanking on her gown for attention.
‘Pretty? That’s a new word. Wonder where he picked up that one,’ Vivi commented, snatching her nephew up into a hug. ‘No, you’re not allowed to touch Mama’s dress with those little hands, but I’m wearing black, so you can do all the grabbing you want round Aunt Zoe and me!’
Teddy giggled with delight as Vivi turned him upside down, swung him round and dumped him on the massive bed for a spot of tickling and the sort of rough play he adored. Winnie paced anxiously. Eros had visited them in London twice to see Teddy but Winnie hadn’t seen him since that tense and disturbing evening meal they had shared. She had been at work, for, although her grandfather and Eros had both scoffed at the idea of such dutiful behaviour, Winnie had worked out her notice, giving the restaurant owner time to find and engage her replacement.
The yacht was slowing down radically to enter the harbour and dock. When they disembarked they were heading straight to the church before moving up to the Nevrakis house on the hill for the reception. When it came to making the return trip to Athens, both Winnie and her sisters already had their instructions. All they had to do was slip away and walk back down to the little harbour, where the yacht would await their arrival. Teddy would be brought there in a separate manoeuvre. ‘Why not leave straight after the church ceremony?’ she had asked her grandfather. ‘Surely that would be easier.’
His answer had disturbed her.
‘I want my guests and his to see Nevrakis dance to my tune and then become the abandoned bridegroom on his wedding day,’ Stamboulas Fotakis had assured her with satisfaction.
Winnie had paled and instantly felt queasy because, strange as it might seem, that aspect of her grandfather’s plans hadn’t occurred to her. Worrying about how she and her son might get away again had consumed her and she had never paused to stop and think about what her unexpected vanishing act would actually mean to Eros or how it would affect him, beyond angering him, of course. And somehow, she didn’t know why, the concept of humiliating Eros in front of a crowd made her feel quite sick and ashamed. That kind of revenge wasn’t her style even if it was her aggressive grandad’s. She didn’t want to hurt Eros because he was her son’s father and insulting and injuring him could only damage an already strained relationship. Why hadn’t she thought of that issue sooner? Now it was too late, she conceded unhappily, hurriedly reminding herself of how ruthless Eros had been when he’d threatened her vulnerable sisters. Eros could look after himself perfectly well, she reasoned feverishly.
He wouldn’t walk away from Teddy but he would realise he had lost any power over her and her siblings. That was how it had to be. She didn’t have a choice just as her sisters didn’t have a choice. This was the price of saving the roof over their foster parents’ heads. Goodness knew, after all the good John and Liz had done for Winnie, Vivi and Zoe and so many other troubled and unhappy teenagers, the older couple deserved the sisters’ protection and the security of no longer having to fear the loss of their home. Even so, she was sad that she was getting married without the older couple’s presence and knew they had been disappointed. Unfortunately, not only would it have been very hard for either John or Liz to leave their foster children for a couple of days with their busy schedule, but also she couldn’t possibly tell them the truth, that it wasn’t a real or normal wedding. Saving John and Liz had entailed a lot of fibs and half-truths that still sat on Winnie’s conscience like lead weights.
‘It’s time.’ Their grandfather lodged in the doorway, ultrasmart in his tailored morning suit and cravat. ‘You look delightful, Winnie. Nevrakis will be disappointed when he realises that he doesn’t get to keep you or my great-grandson.’
Oxygen rattled in Winnie’s tight throat. ‘Eros is tough. He’ll get over it,’ she said flatly, thinking of the man who had moved on untouched by their broken relationship and the hurt inflicted on her. ‘He’s one of life’s survivors.’
‘As are you,’ Vivi reminded her as they walked out onto the deck and began the delicate operation of getting the bride off the yacht without brushing her gown against anything that could mark its pristine ivory threaded with gold folds.
Two classic cars bedecked with flowers awaited them at the harbour and a sizeable crowd provided an audience. Winnie accompanied her grandfather into the first, her sisters and her son entered the second. Her chest tight as a drum with tension, she struggled to smile like a bride when her grandfather urged her. Every floral tribute she saw, every well-wisher reminded her that she was taking part in an unsavoury plan. The cars ferried them only a couple of hundred yards to a picturesque little stone church overlooking the sea with a little village full of white-painted houses climbing the hill behind it.
‘There won’t be many witnesses to the ceremony in a place this small,’ Stam Fotakis lamented at her side, but his granddaughter was relieved by the same fact.
John and Liz took their foster kids to church but pressured no one who preferred not to go. Winnie discovered a new fear bubbling up in her chest, the fear that she was enacting a heavenly punishable offence in undergoing a wedding ceremony without the intent of following through. A civil ceremony would have been preferable, she brooded uncomfortably. A squad of people waited outside the church to witness the bride’s arrival, calling out greetings and good wishes. With her sisters beside her, however, she felt stronger and less oversensitive.
Inside the dim old church with its candles, painted murals of the saints and beautiful white floral displays, her focus leapt straight to the man at the foot of the aisle. Eros turned round, his classic bronzed profile alert to her arrival. Beneath her gown, she could feel her entire body heat and flush with awareness. His brilliant green eyes were gilded in the candlelit interior and her mouth ran dry. Even the morning suit that made her grandad look a little rotund and small could only embellish Eros’s all-male beauty, showcasing every lithe athletic inch of his broad-shouldered, lean-hipped, long-legged length.
‘Gorgeous dress,’ he muttered half under his breath as they both turned to face the Greek Orthodox priest.
Finding her breath in the ritual that followed, bearing up to the crushing solemnity of the occasion in which she understood only sporadic words were a challenge for her. Eros slid the ring, an elaborate engraved platinum circle, onto her finger and she breathed again because it was done. She was the wife of the man she had
once loved to the edge of insanity and her eyes stung with a sudden rush of moisture because the wounding memories seemed very close to the surface at that moment and she welcomed those thoughts, needing the armour of her hatred for him to defend her from other feelings and sensations.
‘Papa!’ Teddy shook free of Zoe’s hand and pounced on Eros as they moved down the aisle again.
That word, that very designation, being openly awarded to Eros shook Winnie up. When had that started? Why had nobody warned her? Of course, it was reality, she reminded herself soothingly, and not all the wishing in the world could change it. Even before the wedding she had been tied for life by her son to a man she despised. An unscrupulous guy without principles, who took what he wanted when he wanted without regard for the consequences to anyone else. For all she knew, she brooded, his wife had divorced him for his infidelity and if he hadn’t been faithful to Tasha, he wouldn’t be planning to be any more faithful to his second wife, for cheaters were known to repeat their habits.
Those grim ruminations rebuilt her defences and bolstered her strength to face the walkout she had to stage. Eros might be Teddy’s papa but he was not a nice guy, not a man in need of her sympathy or guilty conscience, she told herself urgently.
While unaware of his bride’s dark thoughts, Eros, nonetheless, read her tension and assumed it was caused by her shy dislike of being the centre of attention. That was so very different from his first wedding that there was no comparison to be made and he was relieved by that acknowledgement. He had never seen the point of bestowing blame on either himself or Tasha for a marriage breakdown that had seemed inevitable to him from the very first day of their convenient arrangement.
He had done his best to uphold their paper marriage. He had done his duty for years, struggling not to be selfish, struggling to be fair and honourable even when it had become an almighty challenge and their marriage had been in name only. That he had finally failed was something he no longer held against himself as he had once done. Nobody was perfect, neither him nor anyone else. All that troubled him in the present was that Winnie had somehow ended up paying the ultimate cost for his failure. For that same reason he could tolerate Stam Fotakis’s loathing with calm control because, in the old man’s shoes, he knew that he might well have felt the same.
