Nikos’s patience had almost completely run dry. His smile was still fixed in place but he’d chatted and shaken hands with people all evening, in the bar and now here at the table. He hated the side effects of fame. The people who wanted to say hello were nice enough but they had no idea who he was—or where he’d come from. They were only seeing some airbrushed version of reality, as fake as the whole wedding industry itself.
He glanced down at Martin with a raised brow.
‘How much more of this?’ he said, leaning over.
Martin shrugged and smiled.
‘The awards start in five minutes. After that we’ll disappear off to my suite and talk properly.’
Nikos nodded and straightened up, trying to remember the name of the woman to his right who’d just introduced herself, but when he turned around, it wasn’t a plump old lady who was right in front of him, it was a beautiful young woman.
She was tall, toned and blonde, and with a practised sweep he took her all in—from the stunning cerulean-blue floor-length gown that held her feminine curves to perfection, and all the way up past the graceful curve of her shoulders, to the top of her elegant topknot.
She wasn’t overtly sexual, but something about the shape of her hips and the neat swell of her breasts made his body react violently. And he noted with some pleasure that he hadn’t felt such a reaction for a long time.
Suddenly the night was looking up, and even as he reached out his hand to shake hers, he made a mental calculation of how long he would be occupied with Martin before he could properly get to know her.
But she didn’t take his hand.
She didn’t even look in his direction. Instead she sailed right past him and stopped, as Martin looked up and got to his feet.
‘Jacquelyn. It is you! I saw you coming across the floor and I wondered if it was. I thought I might see you tonight.’
Jacquelyn? Nikos quickly noted her name and watched, wondering how this exchange was going to play out. By the warmth in the way Martin was leaning towards her, lingering as he kissed each proffered cheek, he was clearly fond of her. But he had to be at least twice her age…
And the way she was holding herself was interesting: she was transmitting anxiety, with her spine so rigid, shoulders tense; and that smile, beaming a bit too bright.
‘And this is my brother-in-law, Nikos Karellis. Nikos, Jacquelyn Jones—owner of Ariana Bridal. Her father Joseph and I were at school together.’
So, Martin really was old enough to be her father. That was helpful.
She turned her flawless face and keen blue eyes to Nikos. The smile she’d given Martin slipped slightly, he noted, and her spine tightened a notch more too. She blinked and with a long stretch of her arm she permitted her hand to be shaken.
Which he did and he read in that tense-fingered, quickly retracted handshake that he’d just been judged and dismissed. She didn’t like him.
Well, it did happen. Not often, but he wasn’t every woman’s cup of tea. Particularly the ones who thought they were a bit above him. Even with all his money, he never forgot where he’d come from. And nor, it seemed, did they.
He knew the type. They saw his tattoos, his warpaint as his mother called it. The sensual ones saw brutality and found it fascinating. The repressed ones didn’t get him. They saw brutality and found it disgusting.
The truth, of course, was that he had left brutal back in Sydney at the side of the road. Bikers were brutal; his dad was brutal. His entire childhood had been brutalised beyond what any of these lovely people could understand. They had no idea that his mother suffered brain injury as a result of a beating from his father. Or that he had run drugs for him as an after-school chore.
The fact was that he’d made it his life’s work to be free of every trace of violence and aggression. He’d severed ties with everyone except his mother, and poured millions into projects for delinquent kids.
So to be judged as ‘less than’ pressed his buttons, just a little.
He stood tall, squared his shoulders, one hand on his hip, in a gesture that called out her condescension.
‘Former brother-in-law. My wife passed away five years ago.’
She dropped her gaze completely, and when she swept her perfectly oval lids open again there was a tiny flash of recognition.
‘I’m sorry for your loss. I never met her but my father spoke about Maria. And you.’
Did he now? thought Nikos, his mind conjuring up an image of her baby blues widening over some story or other. Maria’s high jinks were always being reported on some media space. And the look on her face told him that she was remembering something of that sort right now.
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I appreciate your kind words. And I’m very pleased to meet you. Are you up for an award tonight?’
The dart of her eyes down to her feet and the blush of pink that bloomed over her face told him all he needed to know on that front. He was beginning to remember the earlier conversation. Was this the woman who was bad in business?
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘Someone else’s turn, this year. But Ariana has won awards in the past, Jacquelyn, haven’t you?’ cut in Martin, gallantly.
‘Oh, yes, one or two. We’ve won Wedding Dress of the Year and been runners-up a few times.’
‘That’s quite an achievement,’ said Nikos. So the business was once at the top of its game. ‘And is this one of your own designs?’
Despite her slightly dismissive glance he stood back to view.
He had a practised eye. He was a retail giant, for heaven’s sake. House was the ‘stylish woman’s department store of choice’, built on his keen eye, and in one of the most rapid, successful expansions in retail in recent years, he’d taken on concessions in all other departments. So he had every professional right to cast his critical eye over the very seductive shape of Ms Ariana Bridal, even as she tried to shield herself with her long slim arms, twisting to the side, speaking the least subtle body language he’d ever witnessed.
Then she started staring over his shoulder, as if looking for someone better to talk to, even more clearly communicating, I’m not interested.
Didn’t she know that being not interested made her uniquely the most interesting person here?
‘Sorry, did you say you designed this yourself?’ he repeated quietly.
She turned, with a slightly irritated look on her face, which he found curiously seductive.
‘Not me, but this is our original design.’
‘Isn’t this the Jones cut?’ said Martin, whom Nikos was beginning to find more than mildly irritating himself.
‘Nonna Ariana’s, yes. Martin, I wonder if we might have a word,’ she said, lowering her voice as
