A Deal at the Altar

‘My youth,’ Bee remarked without any emotion, but it was true. By the time the children acquired independence her years of youth would be long gone.

Sergios was studying her, recalling those lush violin curves in the evening gown she had worn at their first meeting. Full pouting breasts, generous womanly hips. He was startled when that mental picture provoked the heavy tightness of arousal at his groin.

‘Then we make it a real marriage,’ Sergios fielded with sardonic bite, blanking out his physical response with male impatience. ‘That is the only other possible option on the table. If you want a man in your bed you will have me, no other.’

The flush in Bee’s cheeks swept up to her brow and her dismayed eyes skimmed away from the intrusion of his. ‘I don’t really wish to continue this discussion but I should say that while you have other women in your life I would not be willing to enter an intimate relationship with you.’

‘We’re wasting time with this nonsense and we’re adults. We will deal with such problems as and when they arise,’ Sergios delivered curtly. ‘There will be a pre-nuptial contract for you to sign—’

‘You mentioned your homes and your, er … mistress. What other conditions are you planning to impose?’

‘Nothing that I think need concern you. Our lawyers can deal with the contracts. If you choose to argue about terms you may do so through them,’ Sergios completed in a crushing tone of finality. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, I will have you driven home. I have business to take care of before I leave for New York.’

Bee, who had had a vague idea that he might invite her to stay to dinner, learned her mistake. She smoothed down her raincoat and rose slowly upright. ‘I have a condition as well. You would have to agree to be polite, respectful and considerate of my happiness at all times.’

As that unanticipated demand hit him Sergios froze halfway to the door, wondering if she was criticising his manners. Since he had reached eighteen years of age before appreciating that certain courtesies even existed, he was unusually sensitive to the suggestion. He turned back, brooding black eyes glittering below the lush fan of his lashes. ‘That would be a tall order. I’m selfish, quick-tempered and often curt. I expect my staff to adapt to my ways.’

‘If I marry you I won’t be a member of your staff. I’ll be somewhere between a wife and an employee. You will have to make allowances and changes.’ Bee studied him expectantly, for it would be disastrous if she allowed him to assume that he could have everything his way. She had no illusions about the fact that she was dealing with a very powerful personality, who would ride roughshod over her needs and wishes and ignore them altogether if it suited him to do so.

Sergios was taken aback at her nerve in challenging him, viewing him with those cool assessing green eyes as though he were an intellectual puzzle to be solved. His stubborn jaw line squared. ‘I may make some allowances but I will call the shots. If we’re going ahead with this arrangement, I want the wedding to take place soon so that you can move in here to be with the children.’

Consternation filled Bee’s face. ‘But I can’t leave my mother—’

‘You’re a teacher, good at talking but not at listening,’ Sergios chided with a curled lip. ‘Listen to what I tell you. Your mother will be taken care of in every possible way.’

‘In every possible way that facilitates what you want!’ Bee slammed back at him with angry emphasis.

He raised a brow, sardonic amusement in his intent dark gaze. ‘Would you really expect anything different from me?’

CHAPTER THREE

LIFE as Bee knew it began to change very soon after that thought-provoking parting from Sergios.

Indeed Bee came home from school the very next day to find her mother troubled by the fact that her father had made an angry phone call to her that same afternoon.

‘Monty told me that you’re getting married,’ Emilia Blake recounted with a look of frank disbelief. ‘But I told him that you weren’t even seeing anyone.’

Bee went pink. ‘I didn’t tell you but—’

Her mother stared at her with wide, startled eyes. ‘My goodness, there is someone! But you only go out twice a week to your exercise classes—’

Bee grimaced and reached for her mother’s frail hands. Not for anything would she have told the older woman any truth that might upset her. Indeed when it came to her mother’s peace of mind, Bee was more than ready to lie. ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t more honest with you. I do want you to be happy for me.’

‘So, obviously you weren’t at classes all those evenings,’ Emilia assumed in some amusement while she studied her blushing daughter with fond pride in her shadowed eyes. ‘I’m so pleased. Your father and I haven’t set you a very good example and I know you haven’t had the same choices as other girls your age—’

‘You still haven’t told me what my father was angry about,’ Bee cut in anxiously.

‘Some business deal he’s involved in with your future husband hasn’t gone the way he hoped,’ Emilia responded in a dismissive tone. ‘What on earth does he expect you to do about it? Take my advice, don’t get involved.’

Dismayed by her explanation, Bee had tensed. ‘Exactly what did Dad say?’

‘You know how moody he can be when things don’t go his way. Tell me about Sergios—isn’t he the man you met at that dinner your father invited you to a couple of months ago?’

‘Yes.’ So, although the marriage was going ahead, it seemed that her father was not to profit as richly as he had expected from the deal. Clearly that was why the older man was angry, but Bee thought there was a rare justice to the news that her sacrifice was unlikely to enrich her father: threats did not deserve a reward.

‘My word, you’ve been having a genuine whirlwind romance,’ Emilia gathered with a blossoming smile of approval. ‘Are you sure that this Sergios is the man for you, Bee?’

Bee recalled Sergios Demonides’s assurance that she would never again have to look to her father to support her mother. She remembered the fearless impact of those shrewd dark eyes and although she was apprehensive about the future she had signed up for she did believe that Sergios would stand by his word. ‘Yes, Mum. Yes, I’m sure.’

Sergios phoned that evening to tell her that a member of his personal staff would be liaising with her over the wedding arrangements. He suggested that she hand in her notice immediately. His impatience came as a surprise when he had seemingly been content to wait several months before taking her sister Zara to the altar. He then followed that bombshell up with the news that he expected her to move to Greece after the wedding.

‘But you have a house here,’ Bee protested.

‘I will visit London regularly but Greece is my home.’

‘When you were planning to marry Zara—’

‘Stop there—you and I will reach our own arrangements,’ Sergios cut in deflatingly.

‘I don’t want to leave my mother alone in London.’

‘Your mother will accompany us to Greece—but only after we have enjoyed a suitable newly married period of togetherness. I have already issued instructions to have appropriate accommodation organised for her. Have you heard from your father yet?’

In shock at the news that he was already making plans for her mother to accompany them to Greece, Bee was in a complete daze, her every expectation blown apart. On every issue he seemed to be one step ahead of her. ‘I believe he was annoyed about something when he was talking to my mother today,’ she admitted reluctantly.

‘Your father did not get the deal he wanted,’ Sergios informed her bluntly. ‘But that is nothing to do with you and so I told him on your behalf.’

‘Did you indeed?’ Bee questioned with a frown, her hackles rising at the increasingly authoritarian note in his explanations. Acting as chief spokesperson for the women in his life evidently came very naturally to Sergios. If she wasn’t careful to keep his controlling streak within bounds, Bee thought darkly, he would soon have her behaving with all the self-will of a glove puppet.

‘You are the woman I’m going to marry. It is not appropriate for your father to speak of either you or your mother with disrespect and I have warned him in that regard.’

Bee’s blood ran cold in her veins, for she could picture the scene and the warning with Monty Blake raging recklessly and Sergios cold as ice and equally precise in his razor-sharp cutting edge. Her father was outspoken in temper but Sergios was altogether a more guarded and astute individual.

‘How soon can you move into my London house?’ Sergios pressed. ‘It would please me if you could make that move this week.’

‘This week?’ Bee exclaimed in dismay.

‘The wedding will be soon. I’m out of the country and the domestic staff are in charge of the children right now. If possible I would prefer you to be in the house while I’m away. If you’re concerned about your mother being alone, you need not be—I’ve already requested a live-in companion for her from a vetted source.’

Bee came off the phone feeling unusually harassed as she accepted that regardless of how she felt about it, her life was about to be turned upside down. Although she could not fault Sergios for his wish that she become involved with the children as soon as possible, she felt very much like an employee having her extensive duties listed and held over her head. As she had already told her mother about the three orphaned kids in Sergios’s life, Emilia Blake was quick to understand her daughter’s position.

‘You really must put Sergios and those children first, Bee,’ the older woman instructed worriedly. ‘You mustn’t make me more of a burden than I already am. I’ll manage, I always have.’

Bee gently squeezed her parent’s shoulder. ‘You’ve never been a burden to me.’

‘Sergios expects to come first and that’s normal for a man who wants to marry you,’ Emilia told her daughter. ‘Don’t let me become a bone of contention between you.’

Having drawn up innumerable lists and tendered her letter of resignation, for it was the last day of the spring term, Bee attended her evening pole exercise class and worked up a sweat while she tried not to fret about the many things that she still had to do. The list grew even longer after a visit from Annabel, the glossily efficient PA Sergios had put in charge of the wedding.

‘I’m to have a consultation with a personal stylist and shopper?’ Bee repeated weakly, staring down at the heavy schedule of appointments already set up for her over the Easter break that began that weekend. As well as a consultation with an upmarket legal firm concerning the pre-nuptial agreement, there was a day-long booking at a famous beauty salon. ‘That’s ridiculous. That’s got nothing to do with the wedding.’

‘Mr Demonides gave me my instructions,’ Annabel told her in a steely tone.

Bee swallowed hard and compressed her lips. She would argue her case directly with Sergios. Possibly he thought a makeover was every woman’s dream but Bee felt deeply insulted by the proposition. Her mother’s new live-in companion/carer arrived that same evening and Bee chatted to her and helped her to settle in before she packed her own case ready for her move into Sergios’s house the next morning.

When she arrived there she was shown upstairs into a palatial bedroom suite furnished with every possible necessity and luxury, right down to headed notepaper on a dainty feminine desk. The household seemed to operate just like an exclusive hotel. A maid came to the door to offer to unpack for her. Overcoming her discomfort at the prospect of being waited on by the staff, Bee smiled in determined agreement and went off to find the children instead.

Only Eleni, the youngest, however, was at home. Paris was at school and Milo was at a play group, the nanny explained. A rota of three nannies looked after the children round the clock. Bee found out what she needed to know about the children’s basic routine and got down on her knees on the nursery carpet to play with Eleni. Initially when she was close by and utilised eye contact the little girl was more responsive but her attention was hard to hold. When the wind caught the door and it slammed shut Bee flinched from the loud noise but noted in surprise that Eleni did not react at all.

‘Has her hearing been checked?’ Bee asked with a frown.

The newly qualified nanny, who had replaced someone else and only recently, had no idea. During the preceding months the children had suffered several changes in that line and had enjoyed little continuity of care. Having tracked down the children’s health record booklets and drawn another blank, Bee finally phoned the medical practice to enquire. She discovered that Eleni had missed out on a standard hearing check-up a couple of months earlier and she made a fresh appointment for the child. When she returned to the nursery the nanny was engaged in conducting her own basic tests and even to the untrained eye it did seem as though the little girl might have a problem with her hearing.

Milo, who was indiscriminately affectionate with almost everybody, greeted her as though they were long-lost friends. She was reading a picture book to the little boy as he dropped off for a nap when Paris appeared in the nursery doorway and frowned at the sight of her with his little brother.

‘Are you looking after us now?’ Paris asked thinly.

‘For some of the time. You won’t need so many nannies because I’ll be living here from now on. Sergios and I will be getting married in a few weeks.’ Bee explained, striving to sound much calmer than she actually felt about that event.

Paris shot her a resentful glance and walked past into his own room, carefully shutting the door behind him to underline his desire for privacy. Resolving to respect his wishes until she had visited his school and met his teacher, Bee suppressed a rueful sigh. She was a stranger. What more could she expect? Establishing a relationship with children who had lost their parents, their home and everything familiar only months before would take time and a good deal of trust on their part and she had to hope that Sergios was prepared for the reality that only time would improve the situation.

Forty-eight hours later, it was a novelty for Sergios to return to a house with a woman in residence and not worry about what awaited him. He could still vividly remember when he had never known what might be in store for him when he entered his own home. That experience had left him with an unshakable need to conserve his own space. Bee didn’t count, he told himself irritably, she was here for the kids, not for him personally and she would soon learn to respect his privacy. He was taken aback, however, when his housekeeper informed him that Bee had gone out. He was even less impressed when he rang her cell phone and she admitted that she was travelling back on public transport.

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