along one long wall, the champagne tower brimming with expensive golden bubbles, the caviar-laden trays being circulated, and the designer-clad guests, shamelessly indulging their appetites.
‘Because your father insisted,’ he replied, his voice colder than an arctic vortex. ‘As you well know.’
I opened my mouth to tell him for once and for all that none of this made sense to me because no one had bothered to consult me about my own wedding.
The sight of my mother’s face, staring at me from one table away, pain and misery etched beneath her smile, dried the words in my throat.
For whatever reason fate had tangled the Xenakises and the Petrases in an acrimonious weave and my mother and I were caught in the middle. I could no more extricate myself than I could turn my back on her.
A tiny, tortured sound whistled through the air and I realised it came from my own throat—a manifestation of that hysteria that just wouldn’t die down. I stood abruptly, knowing I had to get away before I did something regrettable.
Like climb on top of the lavishly decorated lonely high table, set apart from everyone else to showcase the newly married couple in all their glory, and scream at the top of my lungs.
That just wouldn’t do. Because while I might have acquired a new surname, it was dawning on me that until I learned the true nature of what I was embroiled in I would be wise to keep a firm hold of my feelings.
And an even firmer hold of my wits.
MONEY MAKES THE world spin.
I swallowed my champagne, careful not to choke on it as I dispassionately observed the guests indulging in the revelry of my sham of a wedding.
Money had made this happen, and in the exact time frame I’d requested it.
Money had put that smug smile on Yiannis Petras’s face.
Money had made the family, decimated by my grandfather’s fall from grace, rally together for the sake of enjoying the rejuvenated fruits of my labour.
I’d seen first-hand how the lack of it could cause backbiting and untold strain. Ostensibly solid marriages crumbled under the threat of diminished wealth and influence. I’d seen it in my parents’ marriage. It was why I’d never have freely chosen this route for myself.
My gaze shifted to my brand-new wife.
Had money influenced her agreement to this fiasco?
Was she getting a cut of the hundred million euros?
Of course she was. Had she not proclaimed herself a true Petras?
For those seconds as she’d hesitated at the altar I’d entertained the notion that she shared my reluctance, had imagined the merest hint of resistance in her eyes.
Her words had put me straight.
A cursory investigation had revealed that while she’d graduated from Skypos University with a major in Arts, she’d done nothing with her degree for the last two years. Her father’s daughter through and through, sitting back and taking the easy route to riches.
So what if outwardly she wasn’t what I expected?
I snorted under my breath at this colossal understatement. Calypso Petras…ochi, make that Calypso Xenakis…was beyond a surprise. She was a punch to my solar plexus, one it was taking an irritatingly long time to wrestle under control.
Even now my senses still reeled from what I’d uncovered beneath her veil. She was far from the drab little mouse I’d assumed.
‘I believe there’s a rule somewhere that states you shouldn’t scowl on your wedding day.’
I resisted the urge to grind my teeth and faced my brother. ‘You think this is funny?’
‘This whole circus? No. I believe that ring on your finger and the look on your face makes it all too real.’ Neo affected a mocking shudder intended to rile me further.
It worked.
‘I’m talking about your implication that my… Calypso.’ Thee mou, why did her name sound so…erotic?
Neo’s eyes widened before glinting with keen speculation. ‘If I recall, I didn’t give you any specifics.’
There was a reason Neo was president of marketing at Xenakis Aeronautics. He could sell hay to a farmer.
My fingers tightened around my glass. ‘You deliberately let me to think she was…unremarkable.’
She was quite the opposite. Hers was the confounding kind of beauty one couldn’t place a finger on. The kind that made you stare for much longer than was polite.
Neo shrugged. ‘No, I didn’t. And don’t blame me for the dire state of your mind, brother,’ he answered.
The low heat burning through my blood intensified. And while I wanted to attribute it to this conversation, I knew I couldn’t. Ever since I’d pulled that hideous veil off her face and uncovered the woman I’d agreed to marry a different irritation had lodged itself deep inside me. One I wasn’t quite ready to examine.
But that wasn’t to say I was ready to let Neo off the hook for…
For what?
Making obfuscating observations about Calypso Petras that had made me dismiss her from my mind, only to be knocked off-kilter by her appearance?
Granted, she still wasn’t my type. Her eyes were too large…much too distracting. They were the type of turquoise-blue that made you question their authenticity. Framed with long eyelashes that begged the same question. And then there were her lips. Full and sensual, with a natural bruised rose hue, and deeply alluring despite the absence of gloss.
The dichotomy of fully made-up eyes and bare lips had absorbed my attention for much too long at that altar. And it had irritated me even further that since our arrival at the reception those lips had been buried beneath a hideous layer of frosty peach.
But it hadn’t stopped me puzzling over why the two aspects of her initial appearance had been so at odds with each other. Or why she’d seemed…startled by our very brief kiss on the altar.
False innocence wrapped around her true character? A character that contained more than a little fire.
My mind flicked to other hints I’d glimpsed over the last few hours. While I was yet to discover what lay beneath the layers of the wedding gown, there were more than enough hints to authenticate her voluptuousness.
Yet to discover…
The peculiar buzz that had been ignited during that fleeting kiss notched up a fraction, the fact that the brief contact still lingered on my lips drawing another frown.
‘Your new wife is looking a
