He couldn’t.’ Before the growl could escape his lips, she pressed on. ‘He’s been…working hard and is tired.’
He was used to reflecting that every single word from her mouth was a lie, but this was different. There was the ring of truth in what she said, but there was also a shimmer of falsehood there too or, if not, then evasion distracting him from his reflections on the past.
The toast was given to them by a man he’d never seen before, but was probably a whole lot more appropriate than what Sebastian might have said to a room full of royals. He felt Maria’s gaze on him throughout the evening, and not for the first time wondered whether if it might have been better to have let her believe the falsehood he was weaving through the night. She was young and impressionable and wholly overprotected by her brother.
Within an hour Theo was surprised to find himself on the verge of exhaustion. As a successful businessman and vintner, he was used to heading up million-dollar business meetings, but this constant diplomacy was tiring, yet Sofia showed no signs of fatigue, her fake smile—for he knew it to be fake—was undimmed and as fresh as the first one she had offered.
‘Little Sofia,’ said an older man with shocking white hair and a broad purple sash spotted with medals and pins that proclaimed his importance. He felt Sofia bristle beside him at the patronising appellation. Unconsciously his protective instincts rose, and he drew to his full height.
‘Theo Tersi,’ he said, stretching out his hand to sever whatever connection had sprung between his fiancé and the older man.
‘Georges de Fontagne.’
‘Monsieur de Fontagne is the Minister of Agriculture,’ Sofia said, apparently finally finding her voice.
‘Sofia,’ greeted the small, birdlike woman standing beside Georges, her diminutive stature only serving to magnify her husband’s largess.
‘Louisa,’ Sofia replied with much more warmth.
When Louisa turned her smiling attention to him, Theo took her hand in his and raised it to his lips in such an old-fashioned move, he nearly surprised himself, satisfied to see that a small blush had risen to the older woman’s cheeks as she smiled coyly.
‘I wanted to offer my congratulations and beg that you satisfy my curiosity once and for all,’ interrupted Georges. ‘Please, do share the story of your rather sudden courtship.’ His voice carried, as did the slight trace of cynicism heavy on his words. ‘Do not tell me it was born of that horrifying trend of using matchmakers!’
The man’s wife was looking thoroughly mortified at her husband’s behaviour and Sofia, for the first time that evening, seemed shocked into silence. It was clear that the man knew something of Sofia’s search in Paris six weeks before and was taunting her with it. It was untenable.
Theo might not have been born to this strata of society, but he knew in an instant that he had more manners in his little finger than this man did. It reminded him of the way that his mother’s family had treated them, before he had turned the little dirt pile he and his mother had bought from her family into an award-winning vineyard. Before he had made enough money to buy out the remaining land his mother’s family owned and shuffled them off to some distant part of Greece, only to be pulled out of their exile when he felt like it. Only his giagiá had taken pity on them, supported them through that first year and then afterwards when his mother became sick. Theo refused to acknowledge the perverse fact that he felt more than justified in seeking his own revenge, but would not counter an attack against Sofia from another quarter. And as such, all temptation to leave Sofia to stew in a mess of his making disappeared.
‘We—’ she started, but he squeezed her arm gently to stop her.
‘Agápi mou, I have heard you tell this story before and your natural instinct towards modesty never does me justice. Allow me?’ He watched her eyes widen just a fraction with surprise, and she nodded.
‘I am sure that you will have heard something of my slightly scandalous reputation,’ Theo confided ruefully to the couple. ‘And I could not lie and say it is not deserved, as I had never thought to find a woman who could live up to the high standard set by my mother.’
From the corner of his eye, he saw Sofia struggle not to roll her eyes, and Louisa struggle not to sigh contentedly. His charm might not have been broadcast in the press, but it was no less potent a skill than his wine-making abilities and he was determined to use it now to its fullest.
‘You see, years ago, when I was a young man, I fell deeply in love. I would have given everything for her, and in some ways did.’ He felt Sofia flinch and could have sworn he heard the beat of her heart pick up in confusion as to where he was taking this fabricated story. ‘But sadly it was not to be. So I hardened my heart, sure that I would never feel the same way again. And I was right.’ He had predicted Louisa’s brief gasp of shock, and had not been wrong as he’d imagined Georges’ avaricious gaze ready for his next words. ‘For when I met Sofia I realised that what I had thought was love was just a pale imitation.’ Louisa melted, Georges scowled, and Sofia…he simply couldn’t tell.
‘From the first moment that I laid eyes on her I knew I was completely ruined…’ He paused to see if even this would bring Sofia out of her perfect façade, and, though she paled just slightly, no outward sign of upset showed. ‘Ruined for other women for ever,’ he concluded. ‘I knew that she was the woman that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. You may dismiss that as pure fantasy. Or something based purely on her beauty. But it wasn’t. Every word, movement, decision, enthralled. Her intelligence, her poise and, just as much, her playfulness. Did you know that Sofia has a naughty streak?’
‘I remember as much from her childhood,’ Georges said critically.
‘Ah, but this is what makes Sofia so perfect, for while a country needs an iron-willed ruler, the people need fun and authenticity. And that is what really drew me to Sofia. This I knew in just a moment, but Sofia needed a little more time than I. Oh, she made me work for it, I assure you, Georges,’ he said, leaning towards the obese man to intimate confidence, while his skin crawled. ‘Over our first lunch together, I produced my finest wine…knowing that I had to seduce her senses as much as her mind and heart. It was a very special bottle of wine for me. There were only three made, from the very first grape of my vineyard in the Peloponnese. The first was for my mother, my child will have the third, but Sofia…she had the second.
‘Unbeknownst to me, in the years before we had met, I had created the perfect blend of wine, solely in preparation for her. The playful notes of blueberry and bay leaves grounded in the rich, deep Greek soil were simply…her.’
Theo realised, as he had spoken, he had caught her gaze with his, the words casting a spell that had drawn the attention not just of the horrible Georges and his poor wife, but also that of the surrounding courtiers and dignitaries. A pin dropped to the floor could have been heard in the silence.
Sofia’s face was upturned to his, only a few inches between them, shock and surprise evident in her eyes. He felt, as much as saw, her draw a deep breath, stealing the air from before him. In the silence everything disappeared. The room, the guests, the past…and he was seventeen all over again, looking at the young Sofia as her unpractised body begged him to take her lips. Need and desire encased them, separating them from the rest of the world. The stark sensuality of her calling to him across the years, the months, days and seconds.
He dipped his head, closing the distance between them, and drank from her lips, tasting all the flavours he had just described. The slight sting from where she had
