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As Aristides Fournatos’s niece she had been of interest to her uncle’s circle of friends and acquaintances, accepted by them despite her Englishness, because of Aristides. But as the wife of Theo Theakis she’d become an object not of interest, but of almost virulent curiosity.
Especially from women, and in particular—the gleeful words of her uncle that every woman in Athens would envy her had not been an exaggeration—women to whom her husband was an object of their sexual interest.
There were so many of them. Women like the one who had commandeered him the evening she had first been introduced to him at her uncle’s dinner party, women who had quite obviously either had an affair with him or wanted one. Or wanted another one. Athens, it seemed, was awash with women who found the man she had married magnetically attractive, and who all shared something in common—envy of her, or resentment, or both. Vicky had soon realised that she had committed a social solecism of the highest order—she had walked off with the prize matrimonial catch in Greek society.
Without deserving it.
Crime enough—except for something even worse.
Without appreciating it…
Her gaze hardened.
Vicky knew, as the jet made its descent, that she had spectacularly failed to appreciate the enviable good fortune of having Theo Theakis for a husband. The needling and barbed comments she had received from other women had been proof enough of that. Comments openly directed at her by women congratulating her on her great good fortune in capturing such a prize, as well as more malicious observations from women who had, with sweetly smiling insincerity, expressed the hope that Theo Theakis would manage to be as interested in her as a bride as he evidently was in her uncle’s company. Her studiedly blank reaction in the face of all this antagonism had seemed to irritate them even more. The provocation had got worse, making her dread those social occasions when she’d had to be on show with Theo, until finally, to her relief, she had been castigated as a cold-blooded Englishwoman, dull and passionless, and dismissed from their further attention.
But it hadn’t just been the scores of women for whom Theo Theakis was an object of desire who had regarded her marriage to Theo as a big mistake
Her eyes darkened balefully and her hands clamped in her lap involuntarily.
She knew to the exact moment when she had realised, with a terrifying hollowing of her stomach, just how big a mistake she had made when she had finally agreed to marry Theo.
Talk about being lulled into a false sense of security…
She had always, right from the start, been a reluctant bride. Quite apart from anything else, the terms of her marriage had meant deceiving her mother and stepfather. It had appalled her when she’d realised that Aristides had been planning to invite them to Athens for the wedding, and she’d had to urgently cite her parents’ inability to take leave in the middle of the school term to stop him doing so. She had also lied to him, saying that she had told them about her marriage. Of course she had not! If her mother had got the slightest whiff that her daughter was marrying a man she scarcely knew, for the reasons she was doing so, she would have been on the first flight to Athens to stop her!
Telling Jem had been imperative, of course—if for no other reason than he’d wanted to know when she was going to take over at Freshstart again. It had been incredibly awkward telling him, and even though she had assured him fervently that it was of course a marriage in name only, she knew he’d been dismayed by her decision to go ahead with it. Even the knowledge that as soon as it was decent she would end the marriage and return to the UK with a handsome donation to her father’s charity had not made him warm to it. Nor had he relished having to run Freshstart in her absence, even though she’d promised him she would only be, after all, at the end of a phone if he needed her. But it had been yet another complication, and the more she’d got sucked into the whole business of marrying Theo Theakis, for however short a duration, the more reluctant she’d become—and the more inextricable her commitment had become, as well.
Only the visible relief in her uncle’s eyes had kept her going. That, and one other thing. Since making the fateful decision she had spent minimal time with Theo, during which he had treated her with an impersonal formality that had managed to get her through the ordeal not just of the brief betrothal period but the wedding, as well. Despite the wedding being nothing more than a business arrangement it had been conducted with jaw-dropping extravagance. A lavish civil ceremony—to her uncle’s disappointment—had been fo
llowed by a huge reception, during which she’d stood at Theo’s side, stiff and disbelieving at what she had just done.
It hadn’t been until they’d arrived at their honeymoon destination that the reality had hit her with the force of a sledgehammer. There had been something about being ushered into the honeymoon suite of a five-star hotel with the doors closing on her and Theo that had brought home to her the fact that in the eyes of the world he was her husband.
There was, she had realised, staring in horror, only one bedroom—and only one bed.
She had turned in the doorway. Theo had been behind her.
‘What is it?’ he asked, seeing her aghast expression. His enquiry was brisk.
‘There’s only one bed,’ she said.
His eyes glanced past her shoulder. Then they went to her face. For one brief moment something flickered in his eyes. Then it was gone. He gave a shrug.
‘It’s the honeymoon suite. What did you expect?’
She took a step backwards. Already the bellhop had deposited their suitcases in the bedroom. One by each of the vast wardrobes. At the touch of a bell, the maid service would arrive to unpack them, lay out their nightclothes on the bed…
Did he wear any?
The thought formed in Vicky’s mind, and the moment it was there she could not undo it. Worse, an instant image accompanied it—Theo’s tall, lean frame, stripped of its five-thousand-euro suit…stripped right down to the hard, muscled flesh beneath…
She gulped. No! Dear God, that was no way to begin this totally fake marriage! There was only one way to get through this to the other side—the way Theo had been behaving. As if they were nothing more than passing strangers, temporarily sharing accommodation.
But that’s just what we are. Passing strangers…
For the briefest moment emotion shafted through her. For an even briefer moment she recognised it for what it was—and was horror-struck. No—she could not possibly be feeling regret that they were nothing more than passing strangers.
She steeled herself mercilessly. Oh, sure, Theo Theakis was compellingly masculine—but what the hell had that to do with the current situation? The whole point of this set-up was not to take any notice of her awareness of him, to completely and resolutely ignore it. Because what would be the point of doing otherwise? Theo Theakis had entered into a temporary, unreal marriage to save her uncle’s company. And nothing…nothing…else came into the question!
