AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Stranger.
Imogen’s breath caught as possibilities bombarded her brain.
Dear God...
Could it be? Surely not...? Surely, this man who could raise and raze dynasties at will hadn’t taken leave of his faculties? It was unconscionable.
But then it would also explain every second of his absence. Would explain the complete vanishing act. Would explain why the man she’d never dreamed would have walked away from the one thing he treasured most—his beloved company—had abandoned it so conclusively and entirely.
Every morning she’d woken up and wondered what he was playing at.
Wherehe was playing it.
Whethershewould eventually go out of her mind with not knowing.
The possibility that this was a deliberate act shook through her.
But no. It didn’t seem possible.
So she took one last step and stared into the eyes of the man whose face and name were imprinted on her so indelibly, she knew it would take a superhuman feat to remove them.
‘My name is Imogen Callahan Diamandis. Yours is Zephyr Diamandis.’ And just in case he still doubted her or intended to keep up this puzzling game, she raised her left hand, where he had slipped the obscene diamond that matched his name onto her finger in a sterile room as different from this charming chapel as night from day. ‘And in case you’re still confused, I’m your wife!’
Zephyr Diamandis.
The name was unashamedly Greek.
Arrogantly and pompously so, some might even say. A world removed from the pedestrian Yiannis he’d settled on when he woke up in the strange bed ten months ago.
Shock immobilised him as his brain searched frantically to parse through the bombshell just detonated at his feet. But like every time he attempted it, a dull throb commenced at his temples. As if urging him to let go. To forget.
Zephyr Diamandis.
It was as alien to him as Yiannis.
Yiannis With-No-Last-Name.
That was what his soon-to-beyiayiaby marriagehad laughingly called him for months after he was welcomed into Petros’s small family.
While the name hadn’t quite settled on him as he’d secretly wished it would, he’d accepted it. Because really, he’d had very little to call his own back then, save for the tattered clothes he’d been found in. And the fact that he spoke the language and must be Greek.
His life had improved somewhat since then, however. Now he boasted a handful of friends, cordial neighbours and even a job helping Petros manage his ten fishing vessels. Altogether, he was content enough—although was complete contentment ever achievable?—to have finally given in to the gentle but firm nudges from Petros to make an honest woman of his daughter.
Enough for him to set aside—for now at least—the quest to discover his past.
As Petros had reasoned, if he was important to anyone out there in the wide world, surely the local police force—although it was a stretch to call the single policeman who settled all squabbles at the village taverna aforce—would’ve found something by now?
He shifted beneath the itch between his shoulder blades, the thin inner voice that mocked him for not pushing harder. For ignoring the quiet urgency that dogged him at night.
‘Yiannis?’
He turned to the woman enclosed within his arm, a little startled that he’d forgotten all about her in the aftermath of this stranger...this scantily dressed, fearless and offensive, stunning...beautywho proclaimed herself his wife.
Whose bright green eyes held both defiance and censure. Whose overfull lips were the most sensual lips he’d ever seen. Whose lustrous chestnut locks he wanted to sink his fingers—
Theós...he wasn’t seriously contemplating one woman’s lips when he was standing before an altar, minutes away from marrying another, was he?
Should he thank this woman...whoever she was—because he still wasn’t convinced this wasn’t some cosmic joke, perhaps an overextension of the beer-filled bachelor’s party the village men had thrown him two nights ago—for saving him from committing bigamy?
