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This wasn’t the kind of man who liked being proved wrong—about anything, Lizzie acknowledged, even when it was the dress size of a woman he had only just met. Because he felt that he was being judged and found wanting? Because it was important to him to prove himself as a success in every aspect of his life? Because inside there was still a part of him that had grown up knowing that his father had been sacrificed for a building, with all the fear for his own safety and security that must have caused? Stop feeling sympathetic towards him, she warned herself. It will only make things worse.
‘No, they were perfect—both in fit and style,’ she assured him.
‘So why are you sending them back?’
‘I don’t need them, and … Well, they were far too expensive. The kind of clothes I could never afford. I would have preferred it if the clothes had been less expensive.’
It took Ilios several seconds to adjust his own thinking and judgement to her words. A woman who genuinely did not want a man to spend money on her? Who did she think she was kidding? Ilios didn’t believe that such a woman existed.
‘You will not be living the kind of life you normally live. As my fiancée and then my wife I expect you to dress and behave as the kind of woman those who know me would expect me to marry. You must think of yourself as an actress and these clothes as your props. You will not feel confident amongst my friends if you are not dressed appropriately.’
‘Clothes are only window dressing. True confidence comes from a person’s belief in themselves as someone of value,’ Lizzie felt bound to point out gently.
‘I agree,’ Ilios told her unexpectedly. ‘But we live in a society in which we are judged by those who do not know us on our outward appearance. For my wife to be seen in chainstore clothes could cause the kind of gossip that might well ultimately lead to speculation in the press that Manos Cosntruction is in financial difficulty. It isn’t just my own wealth that depends on the continued success of my business. It is the jobs of all those who work for me. In business, a good reputation can be ninety per cent of one’s success—lose that and you stand to lose everything. You must know that.’
There was enough truth in what he was saying for Lizzie to nod her head.
‘I have brought a selection of rings in different styles and sizes for you to look at. Whichever one you choose can be sized properly for you.’
Recognising that Ilios was waiting for her to precede him out of the room, Lizzie edged her way past the end of the bed, so desperate to avoid accidentally coming into physical contact with him that she bumped into the bed itself and half stumbled, provoking exactly what she had feared. Ilios reached out to steady her, his hand resting firmly against her waist. His attention, though, was focussed on the floor. Following his gaze, Lizzie’s heart sank. There, lying on the floor at his feet, was the corset she had been looking at earlier, which she must have dislodged as she stumbled. Still holding her waist, Ilios bent down and picked it up. He looked at it.
‘It’s going back,’ Lizzie told him immediately. ‘I couldn’t possibly wear it.’
Ilios looked at her. ‘Why not?’
‘Well, for one thing it’s not the type of thing I would wear, and for another I’d need someone to fasten it for me—it laces up at the back,’ she explained. ‘And that means that I’d need …’
‘A man?’ Ilios supplied for her.
‘Another pair of hands,’ Lizzie corrected him. The warmth of his hand on her waist was causing havoc inside her body. An entire quiverful of tiny, fiery darts of sensual pleasure seemed to have been discharged into her body, unleashing a thousand pinpoints of sensory reaction—rivulets of female need that were speedily flowing into one another to form a dangerously fast-flowing flood of physical desire.
Inside her head that desire was painting dangerous images. As though by magic what she was wearing had been removed and she was reclothed in the satin underwear she had been admiring before Ilios had arrived. At the same time, equally magically, Ilios’s hand was stroking from her hip up to her breast, whilst his lips caressed the equally eager curve where her shoulder met her neck and his free hand slid into the silk-satin to cup the rounded flesh of her bottom.
Frantically Lizzie wrenched her attention away from what was going on inside her head. Ilios was a very attractive man, and it had been a very long time since she had … Well, it had been a very long time. But that did not give her imagination carte blanche to indulge itself with those kind of totally impossible scenarios—especially in view of what he had said to her about what he did and didn’t want from their relationship.
Lizzie pulled herself free of Ilios’s hold and headed for the door, leaving Ilios to look thoughtfully at the corset and then at her disappearing back view, before dropping the corset onto the bed and turning to follow her.
‘These are the rings. I asked the jeweller to send a variety for you to choose from.’
Lizzie’s eyes widened as she looked down at the rings in the large leather case that Ilios had opened.
There were solitaires in a variety of shapes and cuts, coloured diamonds surrounded by diamonds, diamonds surrounded by diamonds—so much, in fact, that the light reflected from the rings almost dazzled her.
‘They’re all beautiful,’ she told Ilios. ‘But they’re so … so eye-catching and big. Couldn’t I have something smaller?’
‘How much smaller?’ Ilios asked dryly.
Lizzie pointed to one of the rings and told him, ‘About a quarter of the size of that one. And plain. Just a solitaire.’
‘Something more like this, do you mean?’ he asked, reaching into his pocket and removing a small box which he opened to reveal a plain, perfectly plain solitaire set in what Lizzie assumed must be platinum, on a narrow platinum band.
Ilios didn’t really know why he had noticed the ring, nor what it was about it that had made him think of Lizzie, never mind why he had asked for it to be boxed separately, but he could see from Lizzie’s expression how she felt about it.
The ring was so simple and so perfect that Lizzie fell in love with it immediately.
‘Exactly like that,’ she told him.
Ilios removed the ring from the box and held it out to her, and for some reason—automatically, really, without thinking about what she was doing—rather than take it from him Lizzie extended her finger towards him instead.
Ilios looked at her, and she looked back at him, and a quiver of something age-old and beyond logic shot through her. Neither of them spoke. Instead Ilios curled his fingers round her wrist and then slowly slid the ring onto her wedding ring finger.
It fitted her perfectly. It looked and felt as though it had been made for her—as though it had been meant for her.
‘It’s perfect.’
Emotion choked her voice and stung her eyes. The ring was an age-old symbol of human love and commitment, given to bind a couple together, and suddenly it seemed to possess a significance that touched her far more deeply than she had expected.
‘I wasn’t expecting you back until later. You said you had a lunch engagement.’ How strained and vulnerable she sounded—like someone desperately trying to make polite conversation as a means of covering up the huge, yawning dangerous pit that had suddenly opened up in front of them.
‘The lunch was cancelled.’ He was not going to tell her that he was the one who had done the cancelling.
‘This gallery-opening you said we’d be attending this evening, will it—?’ Lizzie began
‘It will be a high-profile media event—lots of society faces and photographers,’ Ilios interrupted. ‘Lots of gossip and champagne—you know the kind of thing. I have to go. I’ve got a site meeting in half an hour.’
Lizzie just nodded her head.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE wasn’t doing this for Ilios, she was doing it for herself—to prove to herself that she had the strength to deal with this latest obstacle in her life the same way in which she had dealt with all the others: that was with courage and fortitude and a determination that those who needed her and depended on her would not find her wanting, Lizzie told herself firmly as she studied her reflection in the guest suite’s dressing room mirror.
Matt black jersey draped her body from her throat to her knees, the dress’s long sleeves ending on her wrists. A discreet sparkle of tiny jet beads in the shape of a flower just below her left shoulder was the dress’s only ornamentation, but the way the fluid Armani dress moved when she moved really said everything about it that needed to be said, Lizzie knew.
Having had the whole afternoon in which to get ready, and having slipped out to buy a selection of glossy fashion magazines so that she could study the social pages, Lizzie could now understand why Ilios had deemed it necessary to replace her existing clothes. Greek women she could see did not believe in cutting corners or making economies about when it came to making a style statement. Designer labels, expensive jewellery, impeccable make-up and enviably glossy hair were, it seemed, de rigueur, and it was something she had decided she could not match without professional help.
As a result, and with Ilios’s warning very much to the forefront of her mind, she had gone back out in search of a hairdresser. Now, thanks to Ilios’s euros and the welcome skill of a Greek hairdresser, her hair was framing her face in a soft ‘up do’ that managed to be both elegant and yet at the same time look softly feminine, with delicate loose tendrils of hair drifting round her temples and down onto her neck, and her nails were immaculately manicured. Lizzie had refused the dark red polish the manicurist had offered—somehow it hadn’t seemed appropriate for a newly engaged woman: far too aggressive and challenging. However, conceding that anyone genuinely newly engaged to Ilios would want the world to know about it by showing off her ring, she had agreed to a muted pink polish, because it matched her favourite lipstick shade.
She looked at her watch. It was not the pretty Cartier her parents had given her when she had obtained her degree—she had passed that on to Ruby when the twins had been born—but a plain, serviceable chainstore watch. Half past six. Ilios should be back soon, and she didn’t want him to have to come knocking on the bedroom door a second time to find her.
Picking up the black clutch bag that went with her high-heeled suede shoes, and the pure white cashmere coat that was surely the most impractical garment even created, Lizzie opened the door and stepped out into the corridor, giving Ilios, who was standing at the other end of it on his way to his own room, the perfect opportunity to study and assess her appearance.
‘Well?’ she challenged him. ‘Do I look suitably high-maintenance and worthy of being your fiancée?’
To say that he was lost for words would be an exaggeration, Ilios decided, but to admit in the privacy of his own thoughts that the Lizzie standing at the other end of the corridor waiting for his response was a woman whose discreetly sensual elegant took his breath away would not.
When Lizzie saw Ilios frown her heart sank, even whilst her pride stiffened. If she wasn’t good enough for him, then too bad. After all, she wasn’t the one who had insisted upon their fake relationship.
‘You’ll need these,’ Ilios announced harshly, holding out to her several boxes without answering her question, and then walking away from her in the direction of the master bedroom.
Unwillingly, Lizzie took the boxes from him. Don’t you dare cry, she warned herself as she went into the living area. She didn’t dare, with the amount of mascara she had on.
Would it really have been so difficult for him to tell her that she looked good, even if he didn’t really think so? He must know how anxious she was feeling. How much she needed the confidence his support would have given her.
Dropping her coat onto one of the sofas, Lizzie opened the first of the boxes, her eyes widening in disbelief as she looked at the contents. The necklace sparkling on the velvet couldn’t possibly be real, could it? All those diamonds—and a matching bangle. She closed the box quickly. Her dress might look vaguely Breakfast at Tiffany’s, but she certainly wasn’t going to risk wearing something that might be worth a king’s ransom just to reinforce that image.
She was about to open the other boxes when Ilios returned.
He’d obviously showered, because his hair was still damp—and not just on his head. Lizzie had to fight to drag her gaze away from the damp, dark silky body hair she could just see as he finished fastening his shirt. His unexpected request for help as he opened his palm to reveal a pair of cufflinks startled her as she refocused her gaze. Her mouth instantly went dry as a slow ache uncurled inside her body—like woodsmoke, and just as dangerously pervasive.
Somehow she managed to scramble to her feet and go to him, taking the links from him. Rose-gold and plain, they felt soft and warm in her palm. The initials on them were slightly faded, although she could still make out the interlaced A and M. Almost absently she rubbed her fingertip over them.
‘They were my father’s.’ She heard Ilios’s voice somewhere above her head. ‘The design is Venetian. It is a tradition in our family that when a boy reaches the age of maturity he is given a pair of such cufflinks by his father—a sign of his manhood. Since my father was not able to do that for me, I wear his instead.’
For the second time in less than half an hour Lizzie had to remind herself of the damage tears would do to her eye make-up.
Watching Lizzie’s head, bent towards his wrist, the nape of her neck exposed to his gaze, Ilios had to resist the temptation to reach out and curl one of the small escaping fronds of hair round his finger. He could quite easily have fastened the cufflinks himself—far more easily than Lizzie, in fact—but for some reason he had decided to ask her to do it for him. As a test of her suitability to be his wife? he taunted himself. Or as a test to himself, to prove he was not as susceptible to her as his body insisted on repeatedly telling him he was?
She really wished she wasn’t having to do this, Lizzie admitted. Her fingers were stiff with nervousness and yet at the same time they were trembling. She could smell the scent of Ilios’s freshly showered body, mixed with some kind of discreet male cologne, and whilst she wouldn’t have said that the effect it was having on her senses was making her want to rip open his shirt and bury her face against his torso, it wasn’t far short of that.
It was a relief to finally complete her task and be able to step from him, draw in a gulp of hopefully steadying and non-Ilios-smelling air.
‘You aren’t wearing your jewellery.’
‘I … I thought it might be a bit too much.’
The dark eyebrows rose. ‘I disagree. You should wear it.’
Because if she didn’t she’d look out of place. That was the unspoken message he was giving her, Lizzie recognised as she picked up the two smaller boxes and opened them. She had to blink at the magnificence of the diamond earstuds in front of her. They had to be at least a carat each, and so brilliant they dazzled her.
Quickly Lizzie slipped them into her ears. With her hair up she did need something, she acknowledged. But merely ‘something’—not these dazzling and no doubt very expensive earrings.
‘What’s wrong?’ Ilios demanded.
‘I was just thinking how many families the price of these would feed. It seems wrong to wear something like this when so many people are going through such a hard time. It makes me feel uncomfortable.’
‘So if I were to offer them as a gift you would rather I gave their value in money to a charity? Is that what you’re saying?’ Ilios taunted her.
‘Yes,’ Lizzie responded—truthfully and without hesitation.
‘Put on the watch, and then we had better leave,’ was all Ilios said in response.
She was lying, of course; she had to be. He wasn’t deceived or taken in by her, nor would he ever be—by her or by any other woman.
The watch was discreetly expensive: a plain black leather band and a white-gold face was studded with small diamonds.
Since Ilios was already shrugging on his suit jacket, Lizzie fastened the watch quickly and went to pick up her coat—just as Ilios too was reaching for it. Their fingertips met and touched, his over her own, warm and strong, filling Lizzie with a need to simply curl her fingers into his in a silent plea for acceptance and comfort.
Frantically she pulled back, grabbing hold of her coat with her other hand and telling Ilios quickly, ‘It’s all right. I don’t need to put it on. I’ll just carry it until we get out of the car.’
She really didn’t think she was up to any more physical contact right now, with a man whose mere presence seemed to have the ability to send her body’s awareness of him to stratospheric levels.
The gallery, when they reached it, was ablaze with lights, and with the shine reflected from the stunning amount of diamond jewellery being worn. Ilios’s hand was on Lizzie’s arm as he guided her through the mass of paparazzi, waiting to snap photographs of the rich and famous as they made their way from the kerb to the door.
‘I can see now why you aren’t keen on my outfit. Obviously to be considered anything like worthy of you I’d have to have dressed very differently,’ Lizzie was forced to admit reluctantly once they had stepped inside. She had seen how many of the other women were wearing tiny little dresses, bandaged—or so it seemed—to their equally tiny bodies. The dresses revealed lengths of lean bronzed leg and the swell of quite often implausibly taut and rounded breasts.
No wonder he had derided her choice of clothes if this was what he considered normal clothing for the female body.
‘The women you are looking at are high-price tarts up for sale—on the hunt for the richest husband they can snare,’ Ilios told Lizzie grimly. ‘The clothes they are wearing denote their profession, as does their desire to be photographed. It’s their version of newspaper advertising. Come with me.’
As though by magic the mass of bronzed flesh parted to let them through—although not without some very predatory and inviting looks being thrown in Ilios’s direction, Lizzie noticed.
Beyond the call girls and the men hanging round them, in the interior of the gallery were several groups of people: men in business suits, and elegant, confident-looking women in beautiful designer clothes.
One of the men came forward, extending his hand.
‘Ilios, my friend. It is good to see you.’
‘You only say that, Stefanos, because you hope to persuade me to buy something,’ Ilios responded, turning to Lizzie to say easily, ‘Agapi mou, allow me to introduce Stefanos to you. I should warn you, though, that he will insist on presenting us with some hideous piece of supposed art as a wedding gift.’
Agapi mou—didn’t that mean my love? But of course she wasn’t, Lizzie reminded herself, as she admired the clever way in which Ilios had announced both their relationship and their impending marriage.
Within seconds people were crowding round them, smiling and exclaiming, and Lizzie had no need to fake the sudden shyness that had her moving instinctively closer to Ilios, so that he took hold of her hand and tucked it though his arm.
‘Ilios, how can this be? You have always sworn never to get married.’
The speaker was a woman of around Ilios’s own age; she was smiling, but there was a certain hard edge to her voice that warned Lizzie she was someone who might have a shared history with Ilios. She might not entirely welcome the news of his supposed intended marriage, even though she was wearing a wedding ring and was accompanied by a solid, square-faced man who appeared to be her husband.
‘Lizzie changed my mind, Eleni,’ Ilios answered her, and the smile he gave Lizzie as he turned to look down at her made her suspect that if he had gifted her with that kind of smile and meant it she’d have been transfixed to the spot with delight.
‘Well, you cannot cling together all evening like a pair of turtledoves.’ Eleni replied. ‘I want you to convince Michael that he should build me a new villa on the island—and you, of course, must construct it. There is no other builder to whom we would entrust such a commission. I have it in mind to copy your own Villa Manos for us, since you insist on refusing to let us buy the original from you.’
Immediately Lizzie felt Ilios stiffen, his arm rigid against hers.
So, if they had once been lovers the parting had not been an amicable one, Lizzie guessed. Because there was plainly ill feeling between them now. Eleni must surely know that Ilios would never sell his family home.
‘Has Ilios shown you Villa Manos yet, Lizzie? Told you that he will expect you to make your home there once you are married? Personally, I could never live anywhere so remote. Certainly not all year round. And then, of course, one must wonder what one’s husband is getting up to whilst he is here in Thessaloniki and you are stuck on a peninsula in the middle of nowhere.’
‘I would never marry a man I couldn’t trust implicitly,’ Lizzie responded calmly, and with quiet dignity.
‘My dear, how very brave of you.’ Eleni was positively purring. ‘I hate to tell you this, but whilst a man will promise anything whilst he is in the first throes of … love, marriage often brings about a sea change. When a woman is occupied with her home and her children her husband can start to look elsewhere for entertainment. Especially a Greek man. After all, they have the example of our Greek gods before them. Zeus himself could not be faithful to his wife. He had many adventures outside their marriage, if mythology is to be believed.’
‘A man who is truly happy in his marriage does not seek satisfaction outside it, Eleni, and I know that with Lizzie I shall find all the happiness I need.’ Ilios defended their relationship, turning to her to lift her hand to his lips and tenderly kiss her fingers whilst gazing into her eyes.
Ilios really should have been an actor, Lizzie decided, struggling against the tide of longing surging through her. She had to be strong, she reminded herself. She had to fight the effect he had on her. She had to prove to herself that she could endure and overcome the effect his closeness had on her.
‘An ex, I take it?’ she couldn’t resist murmuring to Ilios once they had escaped.
‘Of a sort,’ he agreed, a little to her surprise. ‘Although the prey she was hunting was my cousin, not me. When she discovered that he wasn’t going to inherit Villa Manos she dropped him.’
