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Nothing could’ve prepared him for that view. Nothing until that instant could’ve persuaded him that Winnie would do anything so dishonest as to enter a church with him, speak marital vows and then take off like a bat out of hell afterwards. But there she was, the living proof of his delusional belief that she was different from the other women he had known. And the truth was that she wasn’t one bit different from her predecessors, who had convinced him that women were in no way the more delicate, honest and reliable sex, he derided grimly. In fact, she was one of the worst deceivers and the biggest fraud.
Winnie was shaking like a leaf by the time she finally boarded the yacht, perspiration marking her brow, eyes wide with apprehension, her heart pounding fit to burst. Her grandfather’s cheerful greeting made her turn angrily away. ‘Teddy?’ she began anxiously.
‘Teddy will be here in approximately thirty seconds,’ Stamboulas Fotakis assured her confidently.
But the car that drove down to the harbour was not the one the older man was apparently expecting. It was a sports car, with a child seat fitted, driven by Eros. He climbed out, whisked his sobbing son from the seat into his arms and lounged back against the bonnet of the sports car cradling the little boy with supreme cool.
‘Oh, dear heaven...’ Winnie whispered, dry-mouthed. ‘Eros knows.’
Her grandfather said something very rude in Greek about Eros’s ancestors.
‘I can’t leave,’ Winnie breathed shakily. ‘There’s no way I can leave Teddy here.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. We’ll come back for him. Nevrakis can’t guard him 24/7,’ Stam Fotakis growled. ‘Nor can he keep him from his mother.’
But Winnie was unconvinced. She studied Eros, the man she had married mere hours earlier. She didn’t need to speak to him to understand exactly what he was telling her. His message was etched in the slumberous relaxation of his lean, powerful physique as he leant back against the car and in the steady direction of his gaze. He had Teddy, and in their son he held all the cards that could possibly be played.
‘Winnie...’ Her grandfather rested a heavy hand on her rigid shoulder. ‘Listen to me.’
‘No,’ she said curtly. ‘Listening to you is where I went wrong. If I don’t go back, Eros will fight tooth and nail to keep Teddy and I will not risk losing my son.’
‘I won’t let him do that.’
‘He’s already outwitted you and you hate him. I can’t trust your promises when it comes to the well-being of the most important person in my life,’ Winnie muttered shakily, stepping back from her siblings’ attempts to offer her sympathy. ‘I’m going back.’
‘But you can’t!’ Vivi exclaimed. ‘You didn’t sign up for that!’
‘Winnie has to go back for Teddy. What else can she do now?’ Zoe groaned.
Winnie watched Eros straighten as she climbed back down into the tender that would whisk her back to shore. She watched him smile with satisfaction, the fierce gratified smile of a man who knew he had won the most important game he would ever play. It was a game very much centred on family.
She had played the same game and lost, alongside her grandfather, she acknowledged between gritted teeth, ready to spontaneously combust with anger, resentment and anxiety about the kind of welcome that awaited her on shore.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ANOTHER CAR DREW up at the harbour and Winnie waited while the car seat was installed, freezing into stillness as Eros approached her and extended Teddy, who was sleepily snuffling and tear-stained. Her husband’s silence unnerved her as much as the chill in the emerald-green eyes welded to her flushed and discomfited face. Eros turned the sports car and drove off ahead of them, her transport whisking her at a more sedate pace back up to the house on the hill and the reception she had vacated in such a panic. Still half-asleep, Teddy clung to her.
Emerging from the vehicle, Winnie stilled and bit at the soft underside of her lower lip. ‘What now?’ she whispered unevenly as Eros stalked up to her.
Eros’s brilliant gaze flashed like a storm warning between lush black lashes. ‘Now we entertain our guests until their departure. Luckily for us, your grandfather is not known for his company manners. That he left early with your sisters will not surprise anyone. You went down to the harbour merely to say goodbye to your family.’
His icy intonation had scoured every scrap of colour from Winnie’s cheeks. ‘We have to talk.’
‘After the wedding,’ Eros traded with sardonic emphasis. ‘I refuse to parade my mistakes in front of an audience.’
Her teeth clenched so tightly at his ready admission that marrying her had been a mistake that she hurt her gums. Even so, she swallowed hard on an acid retort because, whether she liked it or not, discretion made better sense, particularly when it would protect Teddy from witnessing the conflict between his parents.
What remained of the afternoon and early evening felt unbearably long and was an unimaginable strain for Winnie. Her jaw ached from smiling and with the amount of effort required to keep Teddy entertained and in a good mood. It felt like a relief to pop her son into a bath after a quick supper and then hand him over to the hovering nanny until it occurred to her that she still had to face Eros.
For a bridegroom, Eros had contrived to give her a very wide berth since their return to the reception and when one of the guests had expressed surprise at the newly married couple’s failure to take to the dance floor, Eros had smoothly concocted the excuse that his bride was suffering from a recently sprained ankle that was still tender.
Yes, Winnie was learning all sorts of unwelcome facts about the man she had married, facts that were distinctly unsettling. Eros was outrageously nimble and versatile in a tight corner and a far better dissembler than her grandfather, who had struggled to conceal his hostility throughout the wedding. With Machiavellian cunning, Eros had masked his suspicions yet still contrived to coolly outmanoeuvre the older man. Eros had played them all, she recognised angrily, let her make an absolute fool of herself traipsing down to the harbour while knowing from the outset that as long as he retained physical possession of their son, she was unlikely to leave. Eros had won by using Teddy as a weapon and that infuriated her.
As she hovered in the doorway of the fully furnished nursery, listening to Teddy’s drowsy little snuffles as he drifted off to sleep, Eros materialised by her side. She hadn’t heard his approach and she flinched back a step.
‘Let’s go downstairs,’ he suggested, his tone perfectly pleasant and in no way threatening.
But Winnie wasn’t hoodwinked because she gazed up into that lean, darkly handsome face and collided with green sea-glass eyes as cool and cutting as ice shards and her tummy turned over sickly as if she were falling from a great height.
‘I’ve dismissed the staff for the night,’ Eros volunteered. ‘They’ll clean up tomorrow. The nanny, Agathe, will be staying, however, for Teddy’s benefit.’
‘I am capable of looking after my son on my own,’ Winnie framed curtly.
‘Are you?’ Eros sounded dubious on that score.
Determined to retain her temper, Winnie compressed her generous mouth as she traversed the stairs ahead of him.
‘After all,’ Eros continued, refined as a polished steel rapier in her wake, ‘you were ready to sa
crifice my relationship with Teddy, regardless of how losing his father would affect him.’
‘No, I wasn’t. You would still have had access to him whenever you wanted!’ Winnie argued vehemently as she whirled round in the echoing hall, which was far too grand in size and space for comfort.
His beautiful shapely mouth curled in disagreement. ‘Not if your grandfather had anything to do with it. I think we both know that Stam had every intention of writing me back out of Teddy’s life!’
‘That may be true but I’m Teddy’s parent and I wouldn’t have allowed that to happen,’ Winnie claimed with spirit, too overwrought to stand still and walking restively through the huge reception room ahead, which was still littered with glasses. Indeed with all the debris from the wedding reception, it made her think of a ghost ship abandoned by its crew.
‘Thankfully you are no longer Teddy’s sole parent,’ Eros ground out with grim emphasis, watching her cross the ballroom at speed to head through the nearest doors onto the terrace outside. For Eros it was like being brought back to the scene of the crime...an unwelcome reminder of the wedding that hadn’t really been a wedding and the blushing bride, who had never intended to be a bride. His temper was as raw-edged as the sharpest knife. ‘Now you have to share that responsibility with me.’
‘I don’t intend to share anything with you!’ Winnie flung back at him over her shoulder as she reached the fresh air and drank it in deep, struggling to control the nerves flashing through her and the confused emotions bombarding her. She would not allow Eros to make her feel ashamed of what she had done, she swore to herself. Sometimes life enforced unpleasant choices and she had done the best she could with poor prospects.
