Alex really ask you to be best man?’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘And you said no?’
Christos’s expression didn’t alter as he inclined his dark head in agreement—which, considering the mental picture of his ex, naked astride the groom, which was at that moment flickering across his retina, was no mean achievement.
‘I expect you had your reasons…?’
Christos did not satisfy her curiosity. ‘Can I take that for you, Aunt?’ he asked, indicating the large portmanteau his elderly relative clutched.
‘I am not an invalid.’ Despite this sharp assertion, she paused to catch her breath. ‘I suppose you know that Andrea is saying your refusal is just another symptom of your deep-seated jealousy?’
Christos’s dark brows lifted. ‘Jealousy?’
The old lady nodded. ‘According to her, you’ve always been jealous of her precious Alex.’ No longer able to conceal her amusement, she gave a loud cackle of mirth and shared the joke. ‘Apparently you never lose any opportunity to belittle him and make him look foolish. Though from what I’ve seen he doesn’t need much help—and so I told his mother. Andrea always was a very silly woman.’
‘I must remember to avoid Aunt Andrea.’
‘As if you care what she thinks. As if you care what anyone thinks.’ Her expression suggested she approved of this attitude.
Christos gave one his most charming smiles. ‘I care what you think, Aunt Theodosia,’ he promised slickly.
The old lady dismissed the comment with a derisive snort. ‘Does nobody but me care about tradition any more?’ she wondered out loud. ‘Nobody would even know this was a Carides wedding,’ she continued, in the same disapproving bellow. ‘Nobody has yet explained to me why they’re not having a proper Orthodox ceremony.’
‘Don’t look at me, Aunt Theodosia. This wedding has nothing to do with me.’ He was only here because his mother had got distressed and played the duty card. ‘They’ll think you don’t like your cousin.’
‘I don’t.’
In the event his honesty had not won him any points with his mother. She had bitterly enquired over the phone if he derived some form of malicious pleasure out of tormenting her.
‘If he gets a little loud around you it’s because you make him feel inadequate,’ Mia Carides had explained.
On the other side of the world, Christos had given a wry grin. Inadequate was one of the things a man might be excused for feeling if he found the woman he was to have married having sex with another man. Only he had never really been in love with Melina.
In truth, it had come as something of a surprise to Christos to hear the news of his own engagement!
When Melina had pulled her father to one side and whispered in his ear, Christos had had no inkling of the secret she was sharing. Not until two minutes later, when their host had called for hush and shared the news with the rest of the three hundred or so close friends who were there to celebrate the thirty years of married bliss he and his wife had enjoyed.
‘I am happy to announce that my daughter and our dear friend Christos Carides are to be married.’
Christos had had no desire to humiliate the rather drunk Melina, with whom he had enjoyed a casual on-off relationship for several years, so he had smiled through the inevitable congratulations and gone home with the firm intention of ending the engagement the next day.
That had been his first mistake!
His next had been not to agree when a very shame-faced and repentant Melina had turned up the next morning, promising to set the record straight immediately. Her remorse had appeared totally genuine, and she’d obviously been mortified—so much so that he had heard himself saying, ‘Why bother? We could give it a trial run.’
‘Do you really think so, Christos?’
‘Why not? We get on well enough, and it’s not as though either of us is waiting for love at first sight.’
Contemplating life without love did not overly concern Christos. A person could not miss what they had never had. And perhaps, as Melina had claimed in one of their many arguments, he was incapable of the emotion?
‘What do you mean, nothing to do with you? You’re head of the family, aren’t you?’ Aunt Theodosia demanded shrilly.
With a rueful smile Christos refocused his attention on the demanding little lady at his elbow. When jet lag eventually kicked in he was going to sleep for a week. ‘A title with few benefits.’
His dry observation drew a crowing little laugh from the old lady, but she added severely, ‘Don’t whine, Christos. You have been blessed with brains, looks and health—not to mention a gift for making large amounts of money without breaking a sweat.’
The unsympathetic recommendation brought a smile to Christos’s dark, expressive eyes. ‘Sorry, Aunt,’ he said, bowing his dark head meekly.
‘This girl of Alex’s has got a face like a horse,’ she observed regretfully.
‘Sally is a very nice girl,’ Christos responded, a quiver in his deep voice.
It was at that moment he saw her.
He stopped dead, and didn’t hear what Theodosia was saying—or, for that matter, anything else. She was framed in the doorway, her hair as she entered the Gothic candlelit Cathedral an incredible burnished beacon.
For a few seconds things got seriously surreal. But there was in all probability some perfectly prosaic reason for the rest of the world receding, leaving him with the impression that he and the redhead were the only two people in the place.
Christos, his jaw clenched, blinked hard, and the hum of conversation gradually filtered back into his consciousness. Jet lag, he concluded, loosening the constricting tie around his neck a little as he narrowed his gaze on the bright head of the slim, simply dressed woman.
He had never seen her before. Not that this made her exceptional. There were any number of people attending the wedding that he had never laid eyes on before. But, unlike this late arrival, those strangers had no connection with the prickle on the back of his neck. The groove between his dark, strongly delineated black brows deepened as he lifted a hand to the affected area.
With a first-class degree in pure maths, and the owner of a mind that was widely held to be brilliantly analytical and logical, he saw nothing contradictory in trusting his instincts. And there was absolutely no doubt in his mind that the slender redhead represented trouble of a major variety.
Perhaps the danger she represented appealed to him? Could that alone account for his suddenly out-of-control libido? He didn’t have a clue, and he was not in a mood to analyse his motivation, he just knew he was going to make sure—even at the risk of major disappointment—of meeting her.
At some level he recognised that even the recent months of self-enforced abstinence didn’t totally explain away the compulsion that made him unable to take his eyes off her for fear she would vanish.
