Wedding Night with a Stranger

It had still taken her days to accept the reality, but she’d never be so naive again.

It would hardly make sense if Sebastian Nikosto wanted to kiss her, after the things he’d said, but nothing about this whole situation made sense. The more she puzzled over it, the more her confusion increased.

She felt as if she were locked in a nightmare. If only she could fall asleep she might wake up and find herself back in her bedroom in Naxos. Had Sebastian’s anger been with her, or with the deal he’d struck with her uncle? He’d made it sound as if the whole thing had been her idea.

Some aspects were so ironic, she’d have laughed if she hadn’t been in such distress.

Thio had probably thought she would suit an Australian Greek because of her Australian mother. Meanwhile, Sebastian Nikosto had taken one glance at her from across a room and had felt cheated. She’d never forget that frown, how it had speared through her like a red-hot needle.

Was it because she wasn’t attractive enough? Had her uncle explained to him that the woman he was throwing in to sweeten his pillow had blue eyes, not the dark shining beautiful eyes most Greek women took for granted as their heritage?

She stabbed a pin into her chignon. Whatever happened, she would die before she kissed a man who’d been paid to take her. No wonder he judged her with contempt. She must seem like the leftovers on the bargain rack in the Easter sales, thrown in as an added incentive. She was almost looking forward to meeting the man again and showing him his mistake. She truly was.

Despite all her bravado, the coward inside her was tempted not to keep the dinner engagement. What if she were to lie low in her room with a headache instead? In the morning, simply check out of the hotel and disappear from Nikosto’s life without a trace?

She would have to check out, anyway. She wasn’t sure what the price would be, but with the grand piano and all in the suite she guessed she wouldn’t be able to afford many nights here.

After the devastating conversation with Thea, desperation had inspired her with a survival plan. If she sold what little jewellery she’d brought and added the proceeds to her holiday money, provided she found somewhere cheaper to stay, she should have enough to get by on until she could find some sort of job. There must be art galleries in Australia. Under the terms of her father’s will, unless she married first she couldn’t inherit her money until she was twenty-five. All she had to do was to stay alive another fourteen months.

More and more throughout the afternoon her thoughts had returned to that beach house on the coast. She wondered if her mother’s auntie still lived there. Would she remember the little girl who’d come to stay nearly twenty years ago? Would she even be alive?

It was tempting to just cut all communication with Sebastian Nikosto and his accomplices in the crime right now. That was what the man deserved. What they all deserved, she thought fiercely. She should just vanish into thin air. Trouble was, if she did that he might raise some sort of alarm. She shuddered to think of how it would be if she were pursued by the Australian police. She could imagine the sneering headlines back in Greece.

Ariadne of Naxos goes missing in Australia. Has Ariadne been eaten by crocodiles?

Ariadne, lost in the outback.

And one that made her wince. The runaway bride runs again.

No, disappearing without saying goodbye could not be an option. And there was no one else who could fix her dilemma for her. She was on her own, in a strange country, and for the first time in her life there was no one else to rely on except herself and her own ingenuity.

She needed to go downstairs in that lift, face Sebastian Nikosto squarely, and tell him eye to eye that she would never marry him, under any circumstances, and that she never wanted to see him again.

A surge of nervous excitement flooded her veins. What if he was furious? She almost hoped he was. It would do her heart good to see him lose his cool control and spit with rage.

She highlighted her cheekbones with liberal application of blush, at the same time boosting her mental courage with some strong, healthy anger. Whatever he said to her this time, however cold and hostile he was, whatever bitter insults he fired at her in that silky voice, there was no way her pride could ever let him think she was afraid of him.

Let the barracuda do his worst. Make-up would be her shield.

She painted a generous swathe of eyeshadow across her lids. Even without it her eyes had appeared dark and stormy after the adrenaline-wired past thirty-six hours. Now they looked enormous, and with more adrenaline pumping into her bloodstream every second there was no disguising their feverish glitter. She smoothed some kohl underneath with her fingertip. Somehow the blue of her irises deepened.

The effect was atmospheric, almost gothic, and intensely satisfying. She felt as if she were in disguise. What to wear was more of a worry.

She hardly wanted to inflame the man’s desires. A burkha would have been her choice if she’d had one to hand, but pride wouldn’t allow her to appear like a woman in a state of panic, anyway. In the end she chose a black, heavily embroidered lace dress that glittered with the occasional sequin when she moved. Since the dress had only thin straps she added a feathery bolero to cover her shoulders. The lining ended a few inches short of the hem, revealing a see-through glimpse of thigh in certain lights, but with the feathers added she looked modest enough.

At last, dressed and ready for battle, her breathing nearly as fast as her galloping pulse rate, she surveyed her reflection.

Red lipstick, the only touch of colour. Black dress, feathers, purse. The sheerest of dusk-coloured silk stockings, and black, very high heels to lend her some much-needed height.

All black.

Well, he wanted his Greek woman, didn’t he?

Sebastian shaved with care, keeping an eye on the clock. Not that he felt any guilt over failing to meet the plane from Athens. Not exactly.

He was a busy guy. If he didn’t keep an eye on Celestrial, who knew how much of a tangle things could get into? He could hardly place himself at the beck and call of every heiress with a whim to make him her husband.

Still, manners dictated that tonight he should make the effort to be punctual. It didn’t have to be a late evening. He could buy her a decent dinner, smooth over the jagged hostilities of the first meeting, and be away by nine to get in some work.

He hoped Miss Giorgias was in a better frame of mind. She’d have been jet-lagged, of course, which would explain her waspish behaviour.

He splashed his face with water and reached for a towel, avoiding meeting his gaze in the mirror. He hadn’t really been so hard on her, had he? There was a lot more he could have said. Anyway, hadn’t she thanked him at the end for being kind?

He felt that uncomfortable twinge again and brushed it aside. For God’s sake, did he have to be a nursemaid simply because he’d agreed—under duress—to meet the woman and check out the possibilities?

He dried off his chest, dropped the towel into the hamper, then slapped on a little of the aftershave his sisters had given him. Lemon, sage and sandalwood, the label read. Guaranteed.

He made a rueful grimace. Guaranteed to soothe a princess?

As rarely happened to a man with his gaze fixed firmly on the stars, his eye fell on a green, moss-like growth around the base of the tap. How long had that been there? It was robust enough to have established quite a hold. Agnes must have missed it. More than once, by the look.

He supposed he could attend to it himself without threatening his gonads. He cast about for something to wipe it away with, and used the only thing readily available: one of yesterday’s socks. The sock made no appreciable difference, so he gave up.

With grander things to attend to, how could a guy be expected to attend to the demeaning sludge of housework?

He frowned into his wardrobe, then surrendered to necessity and chose an evening suit. Was the shirt clean? He checked that it had a recent laundry ticket attached. Lucky he’d remembered at some stage to remind Agnes to empty the washing hamper. It was only to be expected she’d forget things when he was hardly ever here.

Scrubbed, dressed and polished, he gave his overall appearance a cursory check. Looked at from a certain point of view, he supposed, the Giorgias woman had flown across the globe to nail him. Meet him, in her words. Might as well grit his teeth and make an effort to show her a little respect.

He was, after all, he supposed, an eligible guy. A single guy. Widower. He flinched inwardly as the loathsome word surfaced from the deep to strike him down with all its connotations of dust and ashes, funerals and long black days and nights that rang with emptiness.

He wiped those horrors from his mind and walked downstairs, a single man free and unencumbered.

At the hotel he tossed the car keys to the parking valet, then strolled into the lobby, conscious, despite everything, of a certain buzz of anticipation in his veins.

It was the hush of the evening, the city poised to leap into its nightlife, with neon lighting its every billboard and high-rise. Wherever he looked people were hurrying off to their evening engagements: guys with their girlfriends, couples holding hands. For once he felt like a man with somewhere to go other than the office.

Ms Ariadne Giorgias would’ve had an hour or two to rest, so hopefully she might be less prickly. He wondered what she’d be wearing. Something slinky? Some little designer number from one of the couture houses, exhibiting more skin than fabric?

The lobby was busy, but there was no sign of her. After his lapse this morning he would hardly be surprised if she kept him waiting as a punishment.

He strolled over to Reception and asked one of the clerks to phone up to her room.

The clerk had scarcely lifted the phone before Sebastian saw her. She was emerging from the lift along with some other people, but he singled her out at once. Unaccountably his lungs seized. Even after one brief meeting, he recognised the characteristic way she held herself. She walked with her head high, as though to ensnare every available ray of light in her hair, her slender, shapely body graceful and erect. He must certainly have been too long without a woman, because he found his gaze riveted to the sway of her feminine hips, and felt stirred at some deeply visceral level.

Whatever else she was, she was all woman.

The rushing sensation in his blood heightened.

She caught sight of him and her steps made an involuntary halt, then picked up again, and she advanced to meet him, her expression now cool and wary. That tiny, undeniable falter, though, resounded through him and struck his guilty heart like a blow.

A man didn’t have to be an aeronautical design genius to see that underneath the fantastic black dress, slim shapely legs and silky gleaming hair, Ms Ariadne Giorgias was scared. He suffered a jolting moment of self-insight.

Was this what he had become? A cold, angry man who frightened women?

Conscious of her nervous pulse, Ariadne steeled herself to the challenge, then plunged onwards. Sebastian Nikosto looked more handsome, if possible, in an evening suit with a charcoal shirt and a bronze-hued silk tie that found golden glimmers in the depths of his dark eyes. She conceded reluctantly that his colours were again excellent, though the tie was slightly skewed as if he hadn’t given it a final check.

Perhaps it was her imagination, but did his expression seem friendlier? Less—hostile?

His dark gaze swept her, and again she felt that roaring sensation, almost like excitement. There was a look in his eyes that made her too aware of her curves and the shortness of the dress. A million wild thoughts assailed her at the same time. Why, oh, why hadn’t she worn trousers?

While her fingers nearly succumbed to a mad itch to tweak that tie into place, her pulse was thudding in her ears so loudly she hardly took in what he said.

‘…Ariadne.’ The way he said her name made it sound as if it had been wrapped in dark chocolate. One of those liqueurs they gave you with coffee at the Litse in Athens.

‘Cheri Suisse.’ Her voice sounded overly husky. Oh, Theos, had she actually said that? Surely not. Where was the poise she so desperately needed?

It was another of those awkward moments when he would expect to clasp her hand, but this time he went one better. Before she could forestall it, he leaned forward and brushed her cheek with his lips.

It was so unexpected her heart nearly arrested. She felt the slight graze of his shadowed jaw on her skin, and the heady masculine scents, the powerful nearness of him swayed her senses.

Flustered, her cheek burning as if she’d been brushed with a flame, she had one coherent thought swirling over and over in her brain. Here was a man whose interest in her was purely financial. This wild fluttering inside, these uncontrollable sensations, needed to be crushed into extinction. At once.

‘I’m thinking we won’t go too far afield tonight, since you’re probably jet-lagged,’ he said, as smoothly as if he hadn’t been insulting her only a few short hours previously. ‘I know a little place not far from here. Do you like Italian?’

She drew a deep breath.

‘Listen, Sebastian…’ She raised her hands before her like a barricade. ‘I don’t want to marry you.’ He blinked, and before he could reply she added, a tremor in her voice, ‘So—so you might not wish to waste any more of your time. Thanks anyway for—for coming.’

‘What?’ He looked stunned.

‘Yep, that’s right.’ Wound up and swept by a massive charge of adrenaline, she gave him a cool smile. ‘As the song says, I’m holding out for the prince.’

Without waiting to watch him crumble into a heap of masculine rubble, she turned on her heel and swept towards the lifts, rather pleased with her exit line. Unfortunately for her grand moment, before she’d gone more than a couple of steps the persistent man recovered himself and caught up.

‘Well, er—hang on there a second.’ He moved around to block her path. He was shaking his head, amusement seeming now to have replaced his astonishment.

She had to wonder if he’d understood. Or was he so in need of the money, he felt driven to try some other way to talk her round?

‘That’s fine, Ariadne,’ he said. ‘That’s just fine. But whether we marry each other or not, we still have to eat dinner, don’t we?’

His lean handsome face broke into a smile that was far more dangerous than his earlier sternness and hostility. Charming little lines appeared like rays of warmth at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and crept insidiously through her defences to assault her too soft heart. Here she was, all geared to be brave, to foil his cold, cutting words with icy hauteur, and now he’d changed tack.

It was confusing. And unfair. She was so desperately in need of a friend, if she wasn’t careful, before she knew it she’d be forgiving him. Complying. The very word evoked a shudder.

Thank goodness Demetri’s legacy had died hard. She reminded herself that a man’s smiles came easily, and this one could hardly wipe away the distress she’d gone through since she’d boarded that plane. She needed to be strong, and, after so much humiliation, true to herself.

‘I’m not very hungry,’ she asserted coolly. ‘I’ll be happy enough just to order room service. Anyway, it was—interesting, meeting you.’

‘Oh.’ Perhaps he’d picked up on the edge in her voice, because he dropped his gaze and his smile faded. When he glanced up again she saw remorse in his eyes. ‘I deserve that. I know I wasn’t very welcoming earlier. You’d had a long flight and I…’ His deep voice was suddenly contrite. ‘I’m pretty ashamed of how I spoke to you this afternoon. I’d like to apologise properly, and explain, if you’ll give me the chance.’

His eyes had softened beneath his luxuriant black lashes to a rich, warm velvet. She had the ghost of an impression of what it might be like to be someone he admired. Someone he felt affectionate towards. He looked so sincere, her instincts, always weakly anxious to think the best of people, rushed to believe him.

She felt herself begin to melt, then just in time remembered all those occasions with Demetri and steeled her heart against him. Men could be such smooth liars. Especially if there was a financial incentive.

‘Apology noted,’ she said softly. ‘Goodbye, Mr Nikosto. Some other time, perhaps.’

Like some other life. Some other universe.

‘Oh, look, Ariadne…Are you sure I can’t tempt you to a little taste of Sydney nightlife? You look amazing in that dress. It’s a shame to waste it.’ His dark eyes flickered over her, a sensual glow in their depths. ‘We don’t have to go far. As it happens, this hotel is said to have one of Sydney’s finest seafood restaurants.’ With a lean hand he indicated the other side of the lobby. ‘Won’t you let me at least buy you a glass of wine? Break the ice?’

An olive branch was so tempting. She’d never been the vengeful type. His mouth relaxed in a smile, its warmth reflected in his eyes. With his sexy, deep-timbred voice seeping into her tissues like an intoxicant, the man was a powerhouse of persuasion.

She lowered her lashes to avoid his mesmerising gaze, her pulse drumming. Shouldn’t she have one drink with him? Even with the off-balance tie, he looked so darkly handsome in his evening suit. The beautiful cloth was so well cut, it enhanced his wide-shouldered, lean-hipped six-three to perfection. It was hard to imagine he was anything but what he appeared. Civilised, straight, honourable, decent…

Unfortunately, Thea’s information about his company’s need for a cash injection was still lodged in her oesophagus like a spike. The hurt pride and shame surrounding the notion of herself as a prize in a transaction welled inside her again.

‘No, thanks,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I think I’d prefer to go to bed early and read up on Australia.’

Sebastian felt a spurt of good-humoured frustration. How far did a man have to grovel to lighten the mood of this difficult and, the more he saw of her, really quite desirable woman?

He drank her in, admiring her black dress. Wasn’t it the classic dinner garb women wore? That feathery affair she’d added couldn’t conceal the shape of her breasts, the pretty valley dividing them. It was hardly a dress to be lounging in.

Unless of course it was lounging on a man’s bed, prior to being unzipped.

He had a sudden hot flash of smooth, satin breasts spilling into his hands, meltingly tender raspberries aching to be tasted, but he banished it. Still, the thought of them stayed there just below his awareness, like a wicked temptation, dreamed of but forbidden.

He cursed himself for having alienated her and making his situation more complicated than it needed to be. The irony wasn’t lost on him. He was the one who was reluctant to be married. Who’d have thought he’d have to end up fighting to win his unwanted bride for even the smallest dinner engagement?

In every corner of his being, instincts of determination and masculine self-respect gathered in momentum and roused his red blood cells to the challenge. He was reminded of one of his more complex satellite projects. The harder it had been to resolve, the more fired up he’d been to conquer it.

Added to that, he had a vested interest here. If he didn’t marry her, where did that leave his contract with Peri Giorgias? Now faced with the real danger of her slipping from his grasp, with a galvanising immediacy he suddenly realised how crucial it was for him to keep her. He could hardly expect to persuade her against her will, but his entire being grew charged with an urgency to win. This little tussle, at least.

‘Read up on Australia?’ he echoed, appealing to her with the rueful charm he’d known never to fail with women. ‘You’d prefer that to sharing an excellent dinner with a guy whose only desire is to make amends?’

Her glittering blue gaze met his without wavering. ‘Depends on the guy.’

Touché. The thrust was as unexpected as a punch in the gut.

‘Oh,’ he said, his insides reeling. ‘Right.’

Ariadne sensed the impact of her words and knew they’d hit home. She tensed, waiting for some blistering response. To give the barracuda his due, he controlled whatever it might have been.

He merely nodded. ‘Fine,’ he said with a shrug. ‘It’s your call.’ His eyes gleamed and his mouth hardened to a straight, determined line, but he raised his hand in a cool farewell gesture, ‘Enjoy your holiday, then, Miss Giorgias,’ and walked away.

As Ariadne watched his rigid, retreating back the sudden relief from tension made her knees feel wobbly. She let out the breath she hadn’t even realised she’d been holding. Spying a nearby ladies’ room, she made for it, and pushed her way into the blessed sanctuary for a moment of private self-congratulation.

Her first triumph of the day. She leaned up against the wash-basin console until her breathing calmed. In the mirror her eyes had a dark glitter, as though she’d been in a fight. In a way she had, she recognised, and she’d come off victorious.

He’d looked so shocked, as if he’d been savaged by a sheep. Serve him right for conniving with her uncle to snare her like a helpless little lamb. A fleeting image of the sincerity in his eyes when he apologised flashed into her mind, but she dismissed that.

Let him be sorry. Let him suffer.

For once she hadn’t succumbed to a man’s wiles. She’d carried out her plan, and felt better for it. Empowered. With relish, she watched herself in the mirror make a symbolic gesture of dusting off her hands.

Let Sebastian Nikosto know how it felt to be scorned.

Empowerment must have been good for the soul, because it no longer seemed necessary for her to spend the evening cowering in her room. In fact, her appetite came roaring back and she felt ravenous enough to eat a lion.

She swept from the washroom and sashayed in search of the restaurant. Guided by the chink of china and the unmistakable hum of a large number of people tucking in, she found the entrance without much trouble. She could hear the smoky voice of a singer performing some bluesy old love song, and delicious cooking smells wafted to her. Garlic, herbs and exotic spices mingled with the savoury aromas of char-grilling meats to taunt her empty stomach. All at once she felt nearly faint with hunger.

She approached the entrance, feeling glaringly conscious of not having an escort. At the host’s desk she paused. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, lowering her voice to avoid attracting too much attention. ‘A table for one, please.’

The portly head waiter raised close-set brown eyes to regard her, and arched his supercilious brows. ‘Name?’

‘Ariadne Giorgias.’

A subtle and strangely smug expression came over the man’s face. ‘Do you have a reservation, Miss Giorgias?’

‘Well, no.’ She smiled, and almost whispered, ‘I’m a guest in the hotel. I didn’t think a reservation would be required.’

‘I think you will find, madam,’ he said in crushing tones, making no effort to lower his voice to spare her embarrassment, ‘that in the finer hotels with restaurants of renown, a reservation is required.’

She flushed. ‘Oh. Sorry, I didn’t realise. The finer hotels I’ve stayed in before haven’t expected a reservation in their dining rooms.’

The man’s sceptical gaze clashed with hers. ‘And which hotels might they be, madam?’

‘Well…’ She thought back. ‘There was the Ritz in Paris. And the one in London. And the Dorchester. I’m sure The Waldorf in New York was very welcoming…’ Although, her uncle and aunt had been with her on those occasions. She supposed there wouldn’t be many head waiters who would refuse Peri Giorgias a table. ‘Oh, and there was the Gritti in Venice. Though I’m not so sure about that one now. Maybe we did have a reservation there.’