a base in the eighties. Her father-in-law was reputed to live in feudal splendour there in a house that had never been photographed or shown in any publication. But it was supposed to have gardens that could rival the Garden of Eden, a private zoo and literally hundreds of staff.
Lucy felt inadequate. She was far too ordinary for such a backdrop. She had always been ordinary and had once thought that that was what attracted Jax to her. She didn’t put on airs, she didn’t say things she didn’t believe to impress and when she didn’t know something she admitted it. Unexpectedly, Jax closed a large hand over hers and then slowly laced his fingers with her own. His thumb massaged her inner wrist soothingly. It was as if she had hoisted a flag telegraphing panic and he had picked up on it. Or as if he was a little apprehensive too...
An idea she swiftly dismissed, for Tifnos was the Antonakos home and he had to be well accustomed to it.
It was fully dark by the time helicopter landed and Jax scooped her out onto the helipad. Momentarily she was thrilled by the dark heavens filled with thousands of the stars that were never visible in the city. Their luggage was piled into a beach buggy and Zenas took the wheel to drive them up a steep hill road hedged in by a forest of pine trees.
And then at the top the Antonakos house stretched like a giant illuminated cruise ship.
‘It’s big,’ she said abruptly.
‘Yep, for a man who doesn’t like to entertain, Heracles built a very large house,’ Jax conceded wryly.
They stepped into a foyer glossy and glittering with pristine marble and chandeliers. It looked exactly like a plush hotel reception without the desk. A double staircase swanned up to the next floor, each tread wide enough to march an army.
‘Think movie set,’ Jax urged. ‘My mother redesigned the entrance, so there are some very theatrical touches.’
A small middle-aged Greek man approached them with a tray of welcoming drinks. Jax passed her a champagne flute but demurred on his account. ‘I don’t like champagne,’ he admitted.
Lucy drank down hers to be polite while she peered into rooms furnished with the kind of opulence that just screamed old money to her. There were statues and collections and cabinets and elaborate artwork everywhere she looked. Suddenly she understood why there were supposedly hundreds of staff. It would take a fair number to look after so many possessions.
Jax set down her glass for her and closed his hand over hers and told the hovering manservant whom he addressed as Theo that they were going to bed.
‘Wasn’t that a little...offhand?’ she pressed self-consciously as they climbed the stairs.
‘It’s one in the morning and it’s our wedding night,’ Jax intoned, his hand tightening on hers. ‘We can get chatty tomorrow.’
She thought about what she had been avoiding thinking about and colour mantled her cheeks as Jax walked her into a vast room overflowing with urns of white roses and lilies, ornamented with trailing ivy. It was magnificent but not as magnificent as the vast divan bed on the dais scattered with rose petals.
‘Heracles wasn’t joking when he said he’d set the house up for the bridal couple,’ Jax conceded with forbidding cool.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Lucy muttered, because it was and she was grateful that her father-in-law had been prepared to make the effort on their behalf. ‘But maybe a little too grand for the likes of me.’
‘The “likes of me” now happens to be my wife,’ Jax reminded her in reproof. ‘And nothing is too grand or too good for my wife.’
‘I’ll get used to it...it’s just a little overwhelming coming to a house like this,’ Lucy confided.
‘It’s ours now,’ Jax revealed, sharing his father’s plans with her. ‘I think he’s hoping we’ll go forth and multiply now for him.’
Lucy shrugged a slim shoulder, making no comment on that possibility.
‘I think Bella’s enough for us at present. I still have to learn how to be a father,’ Jax completed, making his opinion clear. ‘Do you want a drink or anything to eat? There’re snacks waiting on the trolley.’
‘No. I only want to get my shoes off,’ Lucy admitted, dropping down into a luxurious armchair with a sigh. ‘My feet are hurting.’
‘Let me...’ In the most disconcerting way, Jax crouched down lithely at her feet and unfastened her shoes to slip them off. ‘You have such tiny feet. They used to fascinate me.’
Long brown fingers gently stroked the back of a delicate ankle and Lucy snatched in a sudden startled breath because her skin felt super sensitive, as though he had touched her somewhere much more intimate.
‘All that got me through the day was the glorious thought of sating myself inside you again, koukla mou,’ Jax said huskily, rising to lift her bodily out of the chair and settle her down on the huge bed.
Eyes flying wide, cheeks flushing, Lucy stared up at him with bright blue eyes.
‘So, why do you look like a cornered rabbit?’ Jax asked pleasantly. ‘You’ve been acting strangely all day.’
‘I... I FELT OVERWHELMED,’ Lucy told him and it was true.
The cathedral wedding, the sleek bejewelled Antonakos relatives and guests and the absence of any actual friends aside of her father’s had weighed her down. The constant stares and the low buzz of conjecture hadn’t helped either but when someone as rich as Jax married a waitress, who was the mother of his child, people stared and speculated. The wedding had been a strain and her father’s confession of wrongdoing had crushed her. It had been the ultimate humiliation to learn that only Kreon’s criminal act had made it possible for her to marry Jax.
And yet what could they possibly do about it now? Kreon had confessed too late to change anything. If she and Jax were to part this very night, it would cause a major scandal and she knew Jax wouldn’t want to invite that media attention, which meant that at the very least they would have to stay married for a few months to make any breakup appear less worthy of comment.
‘I can understand that,’ Jax conceded, removing his jacket in a lazy fluid movement.
And Lucy watched him with a fast-beating heart, still wondering what she should do and how she should be behaving. Yet with a good ninety per cent of her being she craved the intimacy that being with Jax would give her. She wanted forgetfulness. She wanted to sink into the comfortable depths of the massive bed and shut the rest of the world out to take refuge in Jax. Even if he wasn’t really hers and possibly wouldn’t be hers for very long. His dazzling green eyes gleamed in the low-lit room, so bright against his dark bronzed skin, and her mouth ran dry.
Tugging his shirt from his waistband, he came back to the bed and sank down behind her to unzip her dress. She sat there like a little statue, her heart thudding like crazy in her chest as he lifted the garment up over her head, leaving her clad only in the white lace lingerie she had worn with her wedding gown. Sliding upright again, he unbuttoned his shirt, displaying a wide slice of his torso, well-defined muscles coming into view as he shed the shirt.
And
