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‘No makeover, no marriage,’ Sergios traded without a second of hesitation. ‘It’s part of the job and I will not compromise on my expectations.’
Trembling though she was with the force of her emotions, Bee slung him a look of loathing and lifted and dropped her hands in a gesture of finality. ‘Then there’ll be no marriage because we need to get one thing straight right now, Sergios—’
Sergios lifted a sardonic black brow. ‘Do we?’
‘You are not going to rule over me like this! You are not going to tell me what I do with my hair or what I should wear,’ Bee launched back furiously at him, green eyes pure and bright as emeralds in sunshine. ‘You’re a domineering guy but I won’t stand for that.’
Her magnificent bosom was heaving. Was he, at heart, a breast man? he suddenly wondered, questioning his preoccupation with those swelling mounds and seeking an excuse for his strange behaviour. Her eyes were astonishingly vivid in colour. Indeed she looked more attractive in the grip of temper than he had ever seen her but he would not tolerate defiance. ‘It is your choice, Beatriz,’ Sergios intoned coldly. ‘It has always been your choice. At this moment I am having second thoughts about marrying you because you are acting irrationally.’
Assailed by that charge, Bee quivered with sheer fury. ‘I’m being irrational?’ she raked back at him incredulously. ‘Explain that to me.’
His face set in forbidding lines, Sergios opened the door for her exit instead. ‘This discussion is at an end.’
Bee stalked up the stairs in a tempestuous rage. She had never stalked before and she had definitely never been so mad with anger but Sergios Demonides had made her see red. Rot the man, rot him to hell, she thought wildly. How dared he criticise her like that? How dared he ask what had happened to make her lose interest in her appearance? How dared he have that much insight into her actions?
For something traumatic had happened to Bee way back when she was madly in love with a man who had ultimately dumped her. That man had replaced her with a little ditsy blonde whose looks and shallow personality had mocked what Bee had once foolishly believed was a good solid relationship. After that devastating wake-up call, the fussing with hair, nails and make-up, not to mention the continual agonising over which outfits were most becoming, had begun to seem utterly superficial, pathetic and a total waste of time. After all, given a free choice Jon had gone for a woman as physically and mentally different from Bee as he could find. For months afterwards, Bee had despised herself for having slavishly followed the girlie code that insisted that a woman’s looks were of paramount importance to a man. That code had let her down badly for in spite of all her efforts she had still lost Jon and ever since then she had refused to fuss over her appearance and compete with the true beauties of the world.
And why should she turn herself inside out for Sergios Demonides? He was just like every other man she had met from her father to Jon. Sergios might have briefly flattered her by telling her that she was a loyal daughter and a gifted teacher, but regardless of those qualities he was still judging her by her looks and ready to dump her for failing to meet his standards of feminine beauty. Well, that didn’t matter to her, did it?
No, but it would certainly matter to her mother, a little voice chimed up quellingly at the back of Bee’s brain and she froze in consternation, recalled to reality with a vengeance by that acknowledgement. If Bee backed out of the marriage, Emilia Blake would most probably lose her home, for Bee was convinced that her angry father would try to punish Bee for his failure to get the price he wanted for the Royale hotel group. Monty Blake was that sort of a man. He always needed someone else to blame for his mistakes and losses and Bee and her mother would provide easy targets for his ire.
And if Bee didn’t marry Sergios, Paris, Milo and Eleni would suffer yet another adult betrayal. Bee had encouraged the children to bond with her, had announced that she was marrying Sergios and had promised to stay with them. Paris had looked unimpressed but Bee had guessed that he wanted her to prove herself before he took the risk of trusting her. Her sister Zara had already let those children down by winning their acceptance and then vanishing from their lives when she realised that she couldn’t go through with marrying their guardian because she had fallen for another man. Was Bee willing to behave in an equally self-centred fashion?
All over the prospect of a visit to a beauty salon and some shopping trips? Wasn’t walking out on Sergios because of such trivial activities a case of overkill? He had too much insight though, she acknowledged unhappily. When he had asked her what had happened to her to make her so uninterested in her appearance he had unnerved her and hurt her pride. That was why she had lost her head. He had mortified her when he marched her over to that mirror and forced her to see herself through his eyes. And unhappily Bee had not liked what she saw either. She had seen that her hair needed a decent cut and her wardrobe required an urgent overhaul and that she was being thoroughly unreasonable when she expected a man of his sophistication and faultless grooming to accept her in her current au naturel state.
Bee tidied her hair before descending the stairs at a much more decorous pace than she had raced up them. A mutinous expression tensing her oval face, she lifted a hand as if she was about to knock on the door and then she thought better of the gesture and simply walked back unannounced into his home office.
Sergios was at his desk working on his laptop. His head lifted and glittering dark eyes lit on her, his expression hard and unwelcoming.
It took near physical force for Bee to rise above her hurt pride and part her lips to say, ‘All right, I’ll do it…the makeover thing.’
‘What changed your mind?’ Sergios pressed impassively, his expression not softening in the slightest at her capitulation.
‘My mother’s needs…the children’s,’ she admitted truthfully. ‘I can’t walk out on my responsibilities like that.’
His hard cynical mouth twisted. ‘People do it every day.’
Bee stood a little straighter. ‘But I don’t.’
Sergios pushed away his laptop and rose fluidly upright, astonishingly graceful for a man of his height and powerful build. ‘Don’t fight me,’ he told her huskily. ‘I don’t like it.’
‘But you don’t always know best.’
‘There are more subtle approaches.’ He offered her a drink and she accepted, hovering awkwardly by his desk while she cradled a glass of wine that she didn’t really want.
‘I’m not sure I do subtle,’ Bee confided.
He was suddenly as remote as the Andes. ‘You’ll learn. I won’t be easy to live with.’
And for the first time as she tipped the glass to her lips and tasted an expensive wine as smooth and silky as satin, Bee wondered about Melita. Was he different with his mistress? Was she blonde or brunette? How long had she been in his life? Where did she live? How often did he see her? The torrent of questions blazing a mortifying trail through her head made her redden as she attempted to suppress that flood of unwelcome curiosity. It was none of her business and she didn’t care what he did, she told herself squarely. She was to be his wife in nam
e only, nothing more.
‘We will drink to our wedding,’ Sergios murmured lazily.
‘And a better understanding?’ Bee completed.
Sergios dealt her a dark appraisal. ‘We don’t need to understand each other. We won’t need to spend that much time together. After a while we won’t even have to occupy the same house at the same time…’
