The Greek Wedding She Never Had, page 6
‘The back of the house overlooks the sea, and on a clear day you can see the peninsular of Kassandra and beyond it, across the bay, Mount Olympus. But not today,’ Jace said with a grimace. He slipped off his jacket and draped it around Eleanor’s shoulders before he climbed out of the car and strode round to open the passenger door. Eleanor gasped as the wind whipped her breath away and drove stinging rain into her face. Jace caught hold of her hand and they ran towards the house.
When they were inside and Jace closed the front door the sound of the storm was muffled by the thick walls. Eleanor looked around the vast entrance hall with a white marble floor. Through an open door she could see a living room where a frail-looking woman was lying on a sofa.
‘Jace, thank goodness you are back,’ the woman spoke in Greek. ‘There are news reports that power lines and trees have been brought down by the gale.’ She noticed Eleanor. ‘Oh, you have brought a guest home.’
‘Stay where you are,’ Jace commanded as the woman attempted to stand up. He put his hand beneath Eleanor’s elbow and drew her forwards. ‘This is my mother, Iliana. Mamá, I’d like you to meet Eleanor Buchanan. She is English but she speaks Greek fluently.’
Eleanor felt self-conscious that she was still wearing Jace’s jacket around her shoulders, but at least it covered her dress, which was sticking to her body like a second skin. Jace’s shirt had taken the brunt of the rain and it clung to his torso so that his black chest hairs were visible through the damp silk.
She tore her gaze from him and stepped closer to the sofa. ‘Kalispera,’ she murmured as she shook hands with his mother. Iliana was painfully thin and the skin on her bony hand felt papery. The signs of illness were on her tired face, but her dark eyes gleamed with warmth and curiosity as she studied Eleanor.
‘You have a beautiful name.’
‘Thank you. My grandfather chose it.’ Eleanor froze and dared not glance at Jace, who had tensed when she’d unthinkingly mentioned her grandfather. There was no reason why she shouldn’t speak of Kostas Pangalos just because Jace had warned her not to, she told herself. She had only heard his version of an alleged feud between his father and her grandfather. But if there was any truth in the story she did not wish to upset Jace’s fragile-looking mother.
Eleanor shivered, feeling chilled to the bone in her wet dress. Iliana immediately looked concerned. ‘You must go and get dry. Will you stay to dinner?’
‘Eleanor will have to spend the night here,’ Jace answered before she could speak, flashing the phone he held. ‘News reports say the storm is set to last until the morning.’ He placed his hand in the small of her back and steered her towards the door. ‘Come with me and I’ll find you something to wear.’
How had she ended up in the enemy’s camp? Eleanor wondered ruefully as she followed Jace up the grand staircase. He strode along the landing on the second floor and opened a door into a charming guest bedroom decorated in the same simple style as the rest of the house, with white walls and blue shutters at the windows.
‘The bathroom is through here.’ He opened another door into an en suite bathroom. ‘A shower will warm you up. I’ll take your clothes to be laundered.’
Eleanor was so cold that her teeth chattered. ‘Do you need me to help you undress?’ Jace asked.
‘Pigs will fly before I’ll allow you to take my clothes off.’
His sexy grin stole her breath. She hated how her heart performed a somersault just because when Jace smiled he reminded her of the charismatic, irresistible man she had fallen in love with a year ago.
‘Keep telling yourself that, pouláki mou,’ he drawled.
‘Don’t call me that,’ she muttered. ‘I heard you say to Takis Samaras that my sister is a beautiful peacock, but you think I am an unremarkable sparrow. If Lissa had inherited the Pangalos, no doubt you would have been keen to marry her.’
Jace gave her a thoughtful look. ‘Your sister is attractive, and she seems to have made a career out of dating rich male celebrities. I have met dozens of Lissas, but I’ve never met anyone as unique or as beautiful as you.’
Eleanor shook her head. ‘You don’t have to try to win me over with pretty lies any more,’ she told him with quiet dignity before she walked into the bathroom and locked the door behind her.
When she emerged from the shower ten minutes later and wrapped a towel tightly around her body before cautiously stepping into the bedroom, she discovered that Jace had left one of his shirts for her to wear. Her layered hairstyle took minutes to dry with a hairdryer. The shorter length was sexier than when she’d worn her hair in a schoolgirlish plait, Eleanor decided. Had that unconsciously been her aim when she’d decided on a makeover of her hair and clothes? she wondered. Had she hoped to make Jace sit up and notice her?
She studied her reflection in the mirror. The borrowed shirt came down to her mid-thigh and was just about presentable to wear to dinner. She grimaced at the hectic flush on her cheeks and her dilated pupils that were evidence of the effect Jace had on her. A knock on the door made her heart skip a beat, but she was greeted by a maid who had come to show her the way to the dining room.
Although it was early in the evening the storm had turned the sky as dark as night, and lamps had been switched on in the house. When Eleanor entered the dining room her gaze was immediately drawn to Jace. He had changed out of his wet clothes and looked divine in black jeans hugging his lean hips and a fine-knit black sweater that moulded the defined ridges of his abdominal muscles.
She forced herself to walk further into the room, conscious of his gaze roaming over her legs all the way down to her red stiletto heel shoes before moving up to the rest of her body. Could he tell that she was braless? She had draped her underwear over the heated towel rail while she showered, but only her knickers had dried enough to wear.
‘Like I said, uniquely beautiful,’ Jace murmured as he strolled towards her.
Eleanor opened her mouth to tell him to stop. How could he lie so glibly? Did he not possess an iota of compunction? But her angry words died before she uttered them when she recognised stark hunger in his eyes.
Desire. For her. A nerve flickered in his jaw and her heart pounded as she realised with a jolt of shock that he wasn’t pretending. Jace wanted her with the same fierce need that she felt for him. The knowledge restored a little of her pride. The glittering intensity in his gaze put them on an equal footing, and she could not restrain a shiver of reaction.
‘Do please come and sit down, Eleanor,’ Jace’s mother invited.
Belatedly, Eleanor realised that she and Jace were not alone. Snatching oxygen into her lungs, she whirled away from him at the same time as he stepped back from her and raked his fingers through his hair.
A maid arrived with a trolley and proceeded to serve dinner. Jace held out a chair for Eleanor and when she was seated he took his place at the head of the table. There were two bottles of wine on the table, a red and a white. He half filled his mother’s glass with white wine and poured Eleanor a glass of Pinot Noir. Her eyes met his, and she told herself not to read anything into the fact that he had remembered she did not like white wine.
Across the table his mother gave her a curious look. ‘Have you known my son long?’
‘Um...’
‘Eleanor and I met more than a year ago,’ Jace murmured when she hesitated.
‘A year! Well, I am delighted to finally be introduced to you.’ Iliana gave a rueful smile when Eleanor’s eyes rested on a large purple bruise on her face. ‘I tripped over in the garden while I was trying to prune the bougainvillea,’ she explained. ‘Unfortunately, I’m not as agile as I used to be.’
‘I employ a gardener so that you can sit and enjoy the garden,’ Jace admonished his mother gently.
‘I like to do what I can. But I am embarrassed to admit that I called Jace at his office this afternoon and cried like a baby,’ Iliana told Eleanor.
She darted a look at Jace. Had he been unable to keep her appointment time because he’d been comforting his mother after her accident? His closed expression gave nothing away. She looked down at her plate of moussaka. The food was delicious but she barely noticed what she was eating, feeling guilty when she remembered how she had stormed out of his office, convinced that he’d been toying with her like a cat with a mouse.
‘I saw on the news programme that the storm caused a tidal surge and many properties on the coast have been damaged,’ Iliana commented.
Eleanor’s heart sank. The last thing she needed was a pile more bills if the hotel had suffered damage.
‘I hope your accommodation hasn’t been affected. Are you staying in Thessaloniki?’
‘No, on Sithonia, at the...um... Pangalos Beach Resort.’ Eleanor dared not look at Jace after she had spoken unthinkingly again.
Iliana’s expression was wistful. ‘I have not been there for many years, but I’ve heard that the facilities are excellent. My husband used to partly own the hotel, and we lived there until Dimitri’s business partner cheated us out of our livelihood.’
‘Goodness, what happened?’ Eleanor feigned surprise and ignored Jace’s warning stare.
‘Dimitri’s partner, Kostas Pangalos, wanted to sell the Pangorakis,’ Iliana explained. ‘My husband could just about afford to buy the other fifty per cent, but Kostas claimed that he had done more to make the hotel successful. In court, his lawyers persuaded the judge to award Kostas two-thirds of the business and Dimitri was only given one third.’
Iliana sighed. ‘The decision gave control of the hotel to Kostas and he bought my husband out. It was heartbreaking to have to leave our home and the hotel that we loved and where Jace had lived his whole life. We opened another hotel, but Dimitri’s heart was not in it. He was deeply upset that the man he had considered to be his best friend had turned on him. But I was not so surprised. I always thought that beneath Kostas’s charming manner he was utterly ruthless.’
‘I suppose it’s necessary to be fairly ruthless to be successful in business,’ Eleanor murmured. She felt sick at hearing what her grandfather had done, but she had no reason to disbelieve Jace’s mother.
‘Kostas destroyed my husband,’ Iliana said flatly. ‘Our second hotel did not do well and, in desperation, Dimitri asked his old friend for a loan. Kostas could afford it. His wife had inherited a top hotel in England and the Pangalos, as he renamed our hotel, was making a fortune. But he turned Dimitri’s request down and we were declared bankrupt. Soon after, my husband took his own life.’
‘We don’t know that for sure, Mamá,’ Jace said softly. ‘The inquest was inconclusive, and it could have been an accident.’
Iliana shook her head. ‘Your father did not stumble and fall off the cliff. His heart was broken, and Kostas Pangalos was responsible for his death as much as if he had pushed Dimitri over the edge.’
CHAPTER FOUR
JACE STOOD IN the orangery and watched the rain lash against the glass. He had not switched on the lamps and the room was illuminated sporadically when the moon appeared from behind clouds scudding across the night sky.
He sipped his whisky. Listening to his mother’s account of how Kostas had destroyed his father had reinforced Jace’s determination to claim his family’s rightful share of the Pangalos. But he had taken no pleasure in Eleanor’s obvious shock. She had managed to hide her distress from his mother, but not from him. He’d heard a tremor in her voice when immediately after dinner she’d made an excuse that she had a headache before going to her room.
Lying did not come naturally to Eleanor, Jace brooded. She was the most guileless and honest person he had ever met. He remembered her shy smile a year ago when she’d confessed that she had fallen in love with him. Instead of feeling triumphant that his plan to claim the hotel was coming to fruition, he had admired her bravery and felt uncomfortable with himself.
But when he’d kissed her and passion had exploded between them he had told himself that Eleanor had mistaken lust for a deeper emotion. Now he believed her when she said she hated him. It was an inescapable fact that if she had not discovered his motive for proposing to her in Paris he would have married her for the Pangalos.
A faint sound from behind him made Jace turn his head and he watched Eleanor walk barefoot into the orangery. She did not notice him standing in the shadows as she crossed to the window and stared out at the dark garden. His gaze lingered on her delectable curves, which he could make out beneath his borrowed shirt, and his body clenched hard as desire ran like wildfire through his veins. Where once her sensual allure had been muted, her transformation into a sexy siren evoked a throb of need that centred in his groin.
‘Headache gone?’ he murmured.
She spun round and he heard her swiftly indrawn breath. ‘I didn’t see you there.’
‘I guessed as much,’ Jace said wryly. ‘You made it clear when you disappeared after dinner that you would rather spend time with the devil than with me.’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’ She turned away from him and hugged her arms around her body. ‘I’m sorry for what my grandfather did to your family.’ Her voice sounded raw, as if she had swallowed broken glass. ‘Pappoús...’ She swallowed audibly. ‘When I was growing up, I thought he was firm but fair and... I loved him. But now I wonder if I ever knew him. The man who treated me kindly was the same man who cheated your father.’ She drew in a ragged breath. ‘I understand now why you must hate me.’
‘I don’t hate you,’ Jace growled. ‘I hated Kostas and I want my father’s rightful share of the Pangalos, but I wish you hadn’t been caught up in an old feud between our families that had nothing to do with you.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me when we first met?’ Eleanor jerked her head in his direction and her eyes flashed in the darkness.
‘I couldn’t risk it. Kostas had chosen you as his heir, but I knew nothing about you. You might have been as ruthless as your grandfather and refused to hand over my father’s share of the hotel.’
‘So you deliberately set out to make me fall in love with you.’ She bit her lip. ‘Your treatment of me was as cruel as anything Pappoús did.’
‘Kostas destroyed my family,’ Jace growled angrily. His blissful childhood with his parents had ended abruptly when they were forced to leave the hotel and they had been homeless and without hope. Life had been different after that, as his father struggled with depression and his mother had scrubbed floors for a pittance. Jace had spent years plotting and planning to destroy Kostas, but now the old man was dead and he had left his granddaughter to succeed him.
A year ago Jace had been prepared to destroy Eleanor, but his conscience pricked that she had not deserved what he had done to her. Only now did he acknowledge how cruelly he had betrayed her. Without conscious thought, he strode across the room and halted in front of her. The seductive fragrance of her perfume assailed his senses and his gut clenched.
‘You ripped my heart out and made a fool of me, and I will never forgive you,’ she whispered.
He swore when he glimpsed the shimmer of tears in her eyes. In the near darkness, with the storm still raging outside, he sensed that her emotions were heightened, as were his. Jace was strongly tempted to kiss the stubborn line of Eleanor’s mouth until her lips softened. But giving in to his clamouring libido would complicate the situation even more, he reminded himself.
‘I don’t need your forgiveness,’ he told her curtly. ‘All I want is your signature on a marriage certificate.’
‘You can’t be serious about wanting to marry me when there is so much animosity between us. You could have any woman you want.’ Eleanor blushed when Jace raised his brows. ‘Don’t be coy,’ she muttered. ‘You know you’re a catch.’
‘Money tends to do that,’ he said drily.
‘I’m sure you are well aware of the effect you have on the female sex.’
‘I’m interested to know what effect I have on you.’
She met his gaze steadily and Jace experienced the unfamiliar sensation of being judged and found wanting. ‘I think you are beautiful but flawed,’ Eleanor told him. ‘I’ve seen inside your soul and there’s nothing there but an empty void.’
He shrugged. But he was stung by her evaluation of him. ‘That is why you will be my perfect temporary wife, omorfiá mou. You won’t harbour hopes that I will fall in love with you.’
‘No, I won’t make that mistake again, Jace.’ Eleanor’s voice was as dry as a desert. She sighed. ‘During dinner, when you went to your study to take a business call, your mother told me how hard life was for both of you after your father died. She said you had to leave school early and get a job.’ Eleanor hesitated. ‘Your mother also mentioned that you deserved to be lucky after something terrible happened to you.’
Jace stiffened. This was an opportunity to tell Eleanor that he had served a prison sentence. But he balked at trying to explain that his conviction for assault had been unjust and he had acted in self-defence. A judge hadn’t believed his version of what had happened, so why would Eleanor? Grimly, he acknowledged that he had done nothing to earn her trust.
‘Ah,’ he murmured, as if he’d just realised what his mother had meant. ‘I believed I was in love once, but my girlfriend dumped me for a richer man. I suppose it seemed terrible at the time, but I had the last laugh when I won a million euros on a lottery game.’
Eleanor looked startled. ‘Did you try to persuade your girlfriend back with your winnings?’
‘No, I used the money to establish a property development business. It was a safer bet than Katerina, who had shown that she was a gold-digger,’ Jace said sardonically. ‘It was the first ticket I’d ever bought and, unlike your brother, I knew that the odds of another big win if I gambled again were minuscule. The money gave me the opportunity to do something with my life. I worked hard, and within five years my business portfolio was worth twenty times my original win.’
