Modern Romance - The Best of the Year

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‘I really do believe that your husband would prefer you to stay in today,’ Dmitri informed Tabby quietly.

Unfortunately, Tabby was in no mood to be grounded like a child and marvelled that Acheron could even think he could give out orders that way through Dmitri, particularly when he had taken off himself at such short notice. What was it? Why was he trying to keep her on the home front? Some sort of control issue on his part? And poor Dmitri was embarrassed to have to say such a thing to her; she could see it in the older man.

‘I’m sorry but it’s really important that I go out today,’ she said levelly. ‘I have something I have to buy.’

‘Then I’ll accompany you and I’ll drive, Mrs Dimitrakos,’ Dmitri responded with determination.

For the sake of peace, Tabby nodded agreement but knew she was going to have to have a discussion with Acheron with regard to the intense security presence he maintained in their lives. Was it really necessary that they be guarded and watched over every place they went? Was there a genuine risk of their being robbed or kidnapped? Was there some kind of specific threat out against Acheron?

‘You’ll be very bored,’ she warned Dmitri as she settled into the passenger seat of the SUV and watched another car full of security men follow them out of the entrance to the beach house with wry acceptance.

‘It’s not a problem. I’m used to going shopping with my wife,’ Dmitri told her calmly. ‘She can stare at one shop window for ten minutes before she’s satisfied she’s seen everything.’

Tabby knew she would be even more of a drag because she didn’t even know what she was planning to buy and was hoping to be inspired by something she saw. What did you buy for the man who had everything? The massive monthly allowance he had awarded her, however, had piled up in her bank account and thanks to his generosity she had got to spend very little of it, so she had plenty to spend.

Dmitri following behind her, Tabby prowled through the exclusive boutiques and jewellery outlets. Acheron wasn’t the sort of guy who wore jewellery. He wore a wedding ring and occasionally cuff links and that was all. But short of copping out by buying him another silk tie when he already had a rail of them, what was she to give him for his thirty-first birthday? Mulling over that thorny issue, she saw the pen. Actually the pen was the only possible description for a pen that bore a world-famous designer label. It would cost a fortune, she reckoned. But equally fast she recalled the pen his mother had bought him and decided that the cost was less important than what it meant, although why she was so keen to buy a significant gift for a man who couldn’t even be bothered to phone her, she couldn’t explain. Maybe it was the desolate thought that the pen might survive with him a lot longer than their marriage and act as a reminder of what they had once shared. Depressing, much? She scolded herself impatiently for her downbeat thoughts.

She bought the pen and arranged for it to be inscribed with his name and the date. She had to make use of the platinum credit card he had given her to make the purchase and, while trying to act as if she spent such sums all the time, she was secretly horrified at spending so much money and worried that Acheron would think she had gone mad. Pale and shaken after that sobering experience, she told Dmitri that she wanted to go for a coffee. He led the way to an outdoor café and insisted on choosing a seat a couple of tables away from her.

She had just bought the most expensive pen in the history of the world, she reflected guiltily, and when he saw the bill he might well freak out and regret telling her that her card had no upper limit. She was sipping her latte slowly, savouring the caffeine, when a shadow fell across her table.

Kasma settled her long elegant body down smoothly into the seat opposite. ‘You’ve been so unavailable you’ve forced me into all this cloak and dagger stuff,’ she complained.

Totally taken aback by the other woman’s appearance, Tabby stared at the beautiful brunette with wide, questioning eyes. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’

‘You’re here, Ash is here...where else would I be?’ Kasma asked, rolling big dark eyes in apparent disbelief at the question. ‘I refuse to believe that you’re so stupid that you can’t accept that Ash belongs with me.’

‘Miss Philippides...’ Dmitri broke into the conversation, standing straight and tall beside Kasma’s chair. ‘Please leave—’

Kasma slung him a defiant glance. ‘We’re in a public place and I can go where I please on this island. We’re not in Greece now.’

‘May I suggest then that we leave, Mrs Dimitrakos?’ Dmitri continued, regarding Tabby expectantly.

Tabby breathed in deep. ‘When I’ve finished my coffee,’ she murmured, determined to hear what Kasma had to say since she sure as heck wasn’t going to receive any information from Acheron.

Grim-faced, Dmitri retreated to an even closer table.

‘I believe in getting straight down to business,’ Kasma informed her. ‘How much money do you want to walk out on this absurd marriage?’

Dumbstruck, Tabby stared at the older woman. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Oh, I’m always serious when it comes to Ash. We belong together and he would have married me, not you, had my stepfather not foolishly tried to force the issue in his will,’ Kasma contended confidently. ‘You must know how proud Ash is.’

‘Staying here, entering into this dialogue is a very bad idea, Mrs Dimitrakos,’ Dmitri leant closer to spell out.

Kasma shot a vicious burst of Greek at the older man and the look on her face was downright scary. With the sudden suspicion that Dmitri’s advice to retreat from the scene might well be the most sensible move, Tabby lifted her bag, settled some money on the table for the bill and stood up. Before she walked away, however, she had something to say. ‘No matter how much money you offered me I wouldn’t walk out on Acheron,’ she murmured tautly. ‘I love him.’

‘Not as much as I love him, you bitch!’ Kasma launched at her in a seething shout of fury that shook Tabby rigid.

Cupping her elbow firmly in his hand, Dmitri walked her away from the café at a fast pace. ‘Kasma Philippides is a dangerously unstable woman. Your husband has a restraining order out against her on Greek soil and she’s not allowed to approach him or make a nuisance of herself there. You can’t talk to her. You can’t reason with her. We’ve learned that the hard way.’

‘Ash should’ve warned me. If he’d warned me, I would’ve walked away immediately,’ Tabby protested defensively. ‘I could see that she was obsessed with him at the wedding but I didn’t understand how much of a problem she was in his life.’

‘He wasn’t expecting her to follow you here. He had no idea she was on the island. By the way, he’s flying back as we speak.’

Relief swept Tabby. He would finally have to tell her the whole story. But he had had to take out a legal restraining order to keep Kasma at a distance? What had driven him to take his father’s stepdaughter to court? That must have taken some nerve, particularly while his father was still alive. Had Kasma been acting like some sort of psycho stalker?

They were driving along the coast road when she noticed that Dmitri kept on looking worriedly in the driving mirror. Tabby glanced over her shoulder to notice the bright red sports car behind them. The driver had long dark hair just like Kasma’s.

‘She’s following us,’ Dmitri told her flatly. ‘Make sure your belt is safely fastened. I may have to take evasive manoeuvres but I’ve already alerted the police.’

‘Evasive manoeuvres?’ Tabby gasped when there was a sudden jolt at the rear of the car. ‘She’s trying to ram us? Is she crazy in that tiny little car?’

Dmitri didn’t answer. His concentration was on the road because he had speeded up. Tabby’s heart was beating very, very fast as she watched in the mirror as the red car tried to catch up with them again. They were zooming round corners so fast that Tabby felt dizzy and she was still watching Kasma’s car when it veered across the road into the path of another car travelling the other way.

‘Oh, my word, she’s crashed...hit someone else!’

Dmitri jammed on the brakes and rammed into Reverse to turn and drive back. He leapt out of the SUV. The team from the other security car were already attending to the victims of the crash, carrying the passenger to the verge, the driver, still conscious, stumbling after them. The red sports car had hit a wall and demolished part of it. Tabby slowly climbed out, her tummy heaving as she approached the scene of frantic activity. Dmitri was talking fast on his phone as he approached her. ‘Stay in the car, Mrs Dimitrakos. You don’t need to see this. Miss Philippides is dead.’

‘Dead?’ Tabby was stunned, barely able to credit that the woman who had been speaking to her only minutes earlier could have lost her life.

‘She wasn’t wearing a belt—she was thrown from the car.’

‘And the people who were in the other car?’ Tabby asked.

‘Very lucky to be alive. The passenger has a head wound and the driver has a leg injury.’

Tabby nodded and got back slowly into the SUV, feeling oddly distanced from everything happening around her. That sensation, which she only vaguely recognised as shock, was still lingering when she gave a brief statement at the police station with a lawyer sitting in, volunteering information she couldn’t understand in the local language. That completed, she was stowed in a waiting room with a cup of coffee until Acheron strode through the door. He stalked across the room, emanating stormy tension, and raised her out of her seat with two anxious hands.

‘You are all right? Dmitri swore you were unhurt but I was afraid to believe him,’ Acheron grated half under his breath, his lean, darkly handsome features taut and granite hard as he scanned her carefully from head to toe.

‘Well, I was fine until you made me spill my coffee,’ she responded unevenly, setting the mug down and rubbing ineffectually at the splashes now adorning her pale pink top. ‘Are we free to leave?’

‘Yes, I’ve made a statement. Thee mou,’ Acheron murmured fiercely. ‘Kasma had a knife in her bag!’

‘A knife?’ Tabby repeated in horror.

‘But for Dmitri’s presence she might have attacked you!’ Acheron lifted a not quite steady hand and raked long brown fingers through his luxuriant black hair. ‘I was so scared when I heard she’d come here, I felt sick,’ he confided thickly.

‘She’s dead,’ Tabby reminded him in an undertone.

Acheron released his pent-up breath and said heavily, ‘Her brother, Simeon, is on his way to make the funeral arrangements. He’s a decent man. I hope you don’t mind but I’ve asked him to stay with us.’

‘Of course, I don’t mind. No matter what’s happened, your father’s family deserve your consideration and respect.’

‘Melinda’s flying back to London,’ Acheron volunteered. ‘She was responsible for the messages on the mirror.’

‘Messages...there was more than one?’ Tabby queried in consternation.

Acheron told her about the message he had seen at the villa in Tuscany and how Dmitri had instantly worked out that Melinda had to be the perpetrator when the nanny did it a second time. Confronted that same morning after breakfast by Dmitri, Melinda had confessed that Kasma had approached her in London and had offered her a lot of money to leave the messages and to spy on Acheron while keeping Kasma up to date with information on where they were staying. It was Melinda who had warned Dmitri that Kasma was actually on the island, news that had alarmed Acheron into making an immediate return.

The fountain of questions concerning Kasma that had disturbed Tabby earlier in the day was, by that stage, returning fast, but the haunted look in Acheron’s lustrous dark eyes and the bleak set of his bronzed face silenced her. He escorted her out to a car, and she slid in, appreciating the air-conditioned cool on her overheated skin.

‘I have a lot to explain,’ Acheron acknowledged flatly and then he closed his hand over hers.

In a reflexive movement, Tabby rejected the contact and folded her hands together on her lap. ‘After the way you behaved that last night and the fact that you haven’t been in touch since, I think holding hands would be a bit of a joke,’ she said bluntly. ‘You don’t need to pretend things you don’t feel to pacify or comfort me. As you noted, I’m unhurt. It’s been a horrible day but I’ll get over it without leaning on you.’

‘Maybe I want you to lean on me.’

Tabby raised a brow, unimpressed by that unlikely suggestion. ‘I’d prefer to fall over and pick myself up. I’ve been doing it all my life and I’ve managed just fine.’

Acheron compressed his wide, sensual mouth. ‘I should have explained about her weeks ago but the subject of Kasma rouses a lot of bad memories...and reactions,’ he admitted with curt reluctance.

‘Kasma’s the reason you thought someone might have pushed me down the stairs at the villa,’ Tabby grasped finally.

‘Maybe she made me a little paranoid but she did destroy my relationship with my father before he died.’

‘And that’s why he wrote that crazy will,’ Tabby guessed.

‘I told you that I only met my father’s family about eighteen months ago. I only agreed in the first place because it seemed to mean so much to him. What I didn’t mention before is that the week before that dinner engagement took place at his home, I met Kasma without knowing I was meeting Kasma,’ he told her grittily.

Tabby frowned. ‘Without knowing it was her?’ she echoed. ‘How? I mean, why?’

‘I doubt if I could ever adequately explain why from Kasma’s point of view. She introduced herself to me as Ariadne. She certainly knew who I was,’ he delivered with perceptible bitterness. ‘I was in Paris on a stopover between flights and she was staying in the same hotel. I’ve never believed that was a coincidence. I believe I was set up. I was alone. I was bored. She targeted me and I fell for it...and you could not begin to understand how deeply I regret taking the bait.’

Tabby was studying him with confused eyes. ‘The bait?’

‘I had a tacky one-night stand with her,’ Acheron ground out grudgingly, dark colour accentuating his spectacular cheekbones, his jaw line clenching hard on the admission. ‘A couple of stolen hours from a busy schedule of work and travel. I’m being honest here—it meant nothing more to me. Although I treated her with respect I never pretended at any stage that I wanted to see her again.’

Tabby averted her eyes, reflecting that respectful treatment would not have compensated Kasma for his ultimate rejection, when presumably she had persuaded herself that she could expect a much keener and less fleeting response.

‘She picked me up in the hotel restaurant. Afterwards she started acting as though she knew me really well. To be frank, it was a freaky experience and I made my excuses and returned to my own room.’

Tabby was swallowing hard at a level of honesty she had not expected to receive from him. ‘But if she already knew who you were, why did she lie about her own identity?’

Acheron shrugged a broad shoulder. ‘Obviously because I would never have touched her had I known she was my father’s precious little girl.’

‘His precious little girl?’ Tabby queried.

‘Her mother was widowed when Kasma was only a baby. My father raised Kasma from the age of three. She was the apple of his eye, his favourite child, and he couldn’t see any fault in her,’ Acheron advanced tautly, his lips compressing. ‘When I walked into the family dinner the week after the hotel encounter I was appalled to realise that Kasma was my father’s stepchild and furious that she had lied to me and put me in that position, but that wasn’t all I had to worry about. Before I could even decide how to behave, she stood up and announced that she had been saving a little surprise for everyone. And that surprise—according to her—was that she and I were dating.’

‘Oh, my word...’ Tabby was as stunned as he must’ve been by that development. ‘And that one...er...episode at the hotel was really the extent of your relationship with her?’

‘It was, but not according to Kasma. She had a very fertile imagination and over the months that followed she began acting like a stalker, flying round the world, turning up wherever I was,’ he explained, lines of strain bracketing his mouth as he recalled that period. ‘She tried to force her way into my life while telling my father a pack of lies about me. She told him I’d cheated on her, she told him I’d got her pregnant and then she told him she’d had a miscarriage. He fell for every one of her tales and nothing I could say would persuade him that my relationship with his stepdaughter was a fantasy she had made up. And having made that first mistake by getting involved with her that night at the hotel, I felt I had brought the whole nightmare down on my own head.’

‘I don’t think so—’

‘It was casual sex but there was nothing casual about it,’ Acheron opined grimly. ‘I went to bed with a woman who was a stranger and maybe I deserved what I got.’

‘Not when she set out to deliberately deceive you and then tried to trap you into a relationship,’ Tabby declared stoutly. ‘I don’t agree with the way you behaved with her but she was obviously a disturbed personality.’

‘She assaulted a woman I spent time with last year, which was why I was so concerned about your safety and Amber’s.’

‘What did she do?’

‘She forced her way into my apartment and punched the woman while ranting about how I belonged to her.’ He grimaced at the recollection. ‘My father begged me to use my influence and prevent it from going to court but I was at the end of my rope. Kasma was dangerous and she needed treatment but as long as her family turned a blind eye and I swallowed what she was dishing out, she was free to do as she liked. The court accepted that she was lying and had never had a relationship with me and therefore had no excuse whatsoever for attacking the woman in my apartment and calling it a domestic dispute.’

‘Didn’t that convince your father that you were telling him the truth?’

‘No, Kasma managed to convince him that I must’ve bribed someone and she had been stitched up by me to protect my own reputation,’ he proffered with unconcealed regret. ‘The sole saving grace was that after that court case I was able to take out a restraining order against her and at least that kept her out of my hair while I was on Greek soil.’

Tabby slowly shook her head, which was reeling with his revelations. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about her? Why wouldn’t you explain?’

His bold bronzed profile clenched hard. ‘I was ashamed of the whole business and I didn’t want to frighten you either. My wealth didn’t protect me from the fact that Kasma could still get to me almost everywhere I went. You have no idea how powerless I felt when she even managed to gatecrash the wedding because I didn’t want to make a scene with my father’s family present,’ he confessed grittily. ‘I didn’t want to publicise my problems with her while my father was still alive either. She caused him enough grief with her wild stories about how badly I’d treated her.’

‘So why on earth did he want you to marry her?’ Tabby queried, struggling to understand that angle.

‘He believed she loved me and he genuinely thought I owed her a wedding ring. He blamed me for her increasingly hysterical outbursts and strange behaviour.’

‘That was probably easier for him than dealing with the real problem, which was her. He would’ve had more faith in you if he had ever had the chance to get to know you properly,’ Tabby opined, resting a soothing hand down on his. ‘Kasma had the advantage and he trusted her and that gave her the power to put you through an awful ordeal.’

‘It’s over now,’ Acheron reminded her flatly. ‘Her brother, Simeon, believed me and tried to persuade her to see a therapist. Perhaps if she had listened she might not have died today.’

‘It’s not your fault though,’ Tabby countered steadily. ‘You weren’t capable of fixing whatever was broken in her.’

Acheron groaned out loud. ‘It’s so not sexy that you feel sorry for me now.’

‘I don’t feel sorry for you. I just think you’ve been put through the mill a bit,’ Tabby paraphrased awkwardly. ‘No wonder you don’t like clingy, needy women after that experience.’

‘I wouldn’t mind if you clung occasionally,’ Acheron admitted.

Tabby rolled her eyes at him. ‘Stop being such a smoothie...it’s wasted on me.’

‘What do you mean?’ Acheron asked harshly as the limo drew up outside the beach house.

‘It’s not necessary to charm me. We both had good reasons to get married and that’s the only fulfilment either of us require from our agreement. You got a wife and, hopefully, I will eventually be able to adopt Amber,’ Tabby spelt out as she slid out of the car and walked into the house.

‘That’s not how I feel,’ Acheron informed her stubbornly.

‘We’re not twin souls and nor are we required to be,’ Tabby flipped back, walking through to the lounge, which stood with doors wide open to the terrace and the view of the cove, draperies fluttering softly in the slight breeze that never seemed to leave the coast. ‘I think we’re overdue a little plain speaking here.’

Outside, she leant up against the rail bordering the terrace and folded her arms in a defensive position. She knew what she needed to say. She was more than halfway to getting her heart broken by the stupid, dangerous pretence that she was on a real honeymoon with a real husband! How had she let that happen? How had she let herself fall in love with a male who was simply doing what he had to do to give the appearance of being a newly married man?

‘Meaning?’ Acheron prompted, stilling in the doorway, six feet plus inches of stunning male beauty and charisma.

Tabby looked him over with carefully blank eyes. He was gorgeous; he had always been gorgeous from the crown of his slightly curly black head to the soles of his equally perfect feet. He focused sizzling dark golden eyes on her with interrogative intensity.

‘Tabby?’ he prompted afresh.

‘Unlike you I call a spade a spade. I don’t wrap it up.’

‘I appreciate that about you...that what you say you mean,’ he countered steadily.

Tabby threw her slight shoulders back, violet eyes wide and appealing. ‘Look, let’s just bring the whole charade to an end here and now,’ she urged. ‘Melinda was spying on us and she’s gone. We’ve done all the newly happily married stuff for weeks and now surely we can both go back to normal?’

‘Normal?’

Tabby was wondering what the matter with him was, for it was not like him to take a back seat in any argument. Furthermore, he looked strained, having lost colour while his spectacular strong bone structure had set rigid below his bronzed skin. ‘We were strangers with a legal agreement, Ash,’ she reminded him painfully. ‘We’ve met the terms, put on the show and now surely we can return to being ourselves again behind closed doors at least?’

‘Is that what you want?’ he pressed curtly, lean brown hands closing into fists by his side. ‘Don’t you think this is a decision best shelved for a less traumatic day?’

Tabby lifted her chin, her heart squeezing tight inside her chest, pain like a sharp little arrow twisting inside her because, of course, it was not what she wanted. She wanted him; she was in love with him but she had to protect herself, had to force herself to accept that what they had shared was only a pretence. ‘No.’

‘You want to go back to where we started out?’ Acheron demanded starkly.

Tabby dropped her shoulders, her eyes veiling. ‘No, I just want us to be honest and not faking anything.’

Acheron breathed in very slow and deep, dark golden eyes glittering like fireworks below the shield of his luxuriant black lashes. ‘I haven’t been faking anything...’

Tabby’s dazed mind ran over all the romancing, the sexing, the hand-holding, the fun, and she blinked in bemusement. ‘But of course you were faking.’