AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER THREE
A WIFE!
Effie stared up at Achileas in stunned silence. She must have misheard him...misunderstood what he was saying. Or was he pranking her?
But as she searched his face, she saw that his expression was no longer mocking but cool and calculating. As if she was some small animal that had blundered into the trap he’d set.
‘And you want to marry me?’
He frowned, and then, shaking his head, he laughed. Not the nice, warm kind of laughter that accompanied an amusing joke, but the humourless sort that people used when something wasn’t funny.
Just wildly implausible to the point of being ludicrous.
Her fingers bit into the folder as she felt it ripple through her.
‘Of course I don’t want to marry you, Effie. But don’t take it personally. I don’t want to marry anyone.’
He shifted against the sofa, one muscular arm extending along the cushions. ‘I do, however, need a wife.’
Now he was making even less sense.
‘Need is a strong word, Mr Kane,’ she said slowly.
‘Achileas,’ he corrected her again. ‘And maybe you’re right. Need is too strong a word. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I require a wife.’
He stretched out his legs, making himself comfortable.
‘My father, Andreas, is elderly and very old-fashioned. He has certain expectations, ambitions...’ he hesitated ‘...certain wishes for his life, and for his son. And as his son I want to honour those wishes.’
The fog of confusion inside her head suddenly cleared.
‘He wants you to get married?’
His dark eyebrows formed a solid line as he nodded. ‘Correct. Like I said, he’s very old-fashioned. His values are traditional, maybe even a little archaic. But, as someone who’s been married for forty years, he believes matrimony is a cornerstone of life.’
Forty years of marriage. That was a good thing, wasn’t it? It was a testament to his parents’ commitment and love. And yet there was an edge to his voice as if the longevity of their marriage was not a matter of pride or delight, but inconvenience.
She felt suddenly closer to tears than she had all day. Didn’t he know how lucky he was? How privileged? To have seen love given and received by two people who had chosen one another. It was as rare and elusive as orris, the precious oil produced from an iris bulb.
She couldn’t imagine ever taking that for granted. Being like him. He was so pampered, so entitled...
Except that made him sound like a child—a sulky little boy—and there was nothing boyish about Achileas Kane. He was a man...the physical embodiment of unapologetic masculinity.
‘But you don’t believe that?’ she said.
He shrugged almost lazily, but she could sense a tension that hadn’t been there a moment earlier.
‘Why would I? Why would anyone? Humans and their ancestors have been walking the planet for about six million years, and for all but a thousand of those years they weren’t monogamous. But, as I have explained, matrimony matters to my father. And as he grows older it matters more.’
Her heart thudded as he looked up, his clear blue gaze sharpening against hers. ‘And he is getting frailer. That’s why I require a wife. Just in the short term,’ he added smoothly, as if this somehow made his bizarre request understandable.
Which it didn’t.
But why should she care if it was understandable or not? She thought back to his short, derisive bark of laughter, then back further, to when he had told her that she needed to make more effort to be heard if she wanted to be listened to.
Then make him listen, she told herself.
‘You might require a wife, Mr Kane, but I don’t require a husband. Nor do I want one. Not even in the short term.’
