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A small hand touched his chest and he refocused on Thea, his almost-bride.
Her face held wariness and confusion, much like the emotions churning through him.
‘His name isn’t Yiannis,’ the woman—his wife—said.
Flicking a glance at her, he watched her nostrils flare in jealousy and felt a punch of something—hot and vibrant and puzzlingly satisfying—inside him.
What the hell?
Was he...glad that this woman was jealous of Thea?
Ever the thinker, as Petros had also laughingly labelled him, he placed himself in the woman’s position. Then felt a distinctly unpleasant emotion churn in his gut.
Ne, he would be vastly disgruntled too, if he discovered his wife was marrying another man.
But...he only hadherword for it.
‘I am your husband?’ Why did that question punch something hot and heavy through his veins?
‘Yes,’ the woman...Imogen...responded, although something shook in her voice he couldn’t quite recognise.
The throb at his temple stepped up another notch as he watched her. ‘Prove it,’ he drawled eventually.
Her eyes widened and, again, something snagged in his midriff. Her eyes were enchanting, reflecting shards of the multicoloured light streaming through the windows. For some absurd reason, he wanted to step closer, look deeper into those aquamarine depths.
‘What?’
He forced himself to continue the entirely rational demand. Allowed himself to rake his gaze over her body to prove his point. ‘Prove that this isn’t some prankyouare pulling. We get tourists like you on the isle all the time, looking for...unsavoury ways to amuse themselves. Prove you’re not on here to extend whateverdareyou’ve been chosen to play.’
Her jaw sagged, her chest heaving in disbelief. ‘Are you joking?’
Her accent was foreign. American or Canadian—although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly how he knew that. And he was a little taken aback with how alluring he found it. How much he wanted to step closer, press his thumb to that luscious lower, pouting lip.
He tightened his gut, pressing his hand over Thea’s to gather a semblance of control. To relocate the integrity that Petros and Yiayia had both praised him for.
Again he watched her gaze flick to the gesture, watched her green eyes flash for a second before she corralled it.
Interesting...
Why would she want to hide that emotion from him? He was absolutely certain he wouldn’t throttle his emotions if he were watching her being claimed by—
Enough.
‘Surely, you didn’t just expect me to take you at your word?’ he said as Petros, the man who would’ve been his father-in-law by now if they hadn’t been interrupted, rose from his seat and joined them.
The woman’s mouth closed and opened. ‘I’m not...’ She stopped and shook her head. ‘This isn’t a prank, believe me.’
He flicked up an eyebrow, and watched, far too fascinated, as she plucked a phone from a minuscule handbag whose strap was slung across her body, prompting Yiannis...Zephyr...to become aware of her full, perky breasts.
A sleek phone emerged but before she could produce the evidence he sought, Petros stepped forward.
‘What my son is too polite to say is that we have...visitors like you far too frequently in our village, hoping to bask in a slice of our admittedly simple lives, so they can go and boast about it to their friends. What is it you want, exactly, miss?’
She shook her head. ‘Your son?’ she echoed, ignoring the rest of Petros’s query. Then her gaze slanted to him, a look in her eyes that winked out far too quickly for Yiannis to decipher. ‘This isn’t your father.’
His heart jumped, the thirst for knowledge almost making him blurt out a demand for her to elaborate. To tell him everything she knew about him. He bit his lip just in time. He hadn’t ascertained that this woman wasn’t toying with him; that she wasn’t everything Petros was accusing her of.
Petros waved her response away, triggering a curious dissatisfaction in Yiannis. ‘He’s my son in all the ways that count. Now, if you’ve finished entertaining yourself, we have a ceremony to finish. Unless you truly have this proof to show us?’
