A Stormy Greek Marriage (14 page)

‘I had no idea you were that bothered about not having those memories,’ Billie confided.

‘Of course I was bothered. That encounter was central to our marriage and your attitude of distrust. I had to remember what I did that night to understand how horrific the experience must have been for you. One minute we were together and then the next, it was like it had never happened—’

‘Yes, it was very painful,’ Billie acknowledged unhappily, grateful he understood and astonished that he had seen a psychiatrist in an effort to deal with the issue and find a solution. ‘But I really didn’t know what to do about it. Staying quiet seemed the most sensible move on every count—of course I didn’t think of what might happen if I fell pregnant. When did you remember it all?’

‘I had a couple of small flashes and then, one morning, I woke up and the whole recollection was just there,’ he revealed. ‘I was shattered when I realised how I’d felt that night with you.’

‘And you truly think you got involved with Calisto because you were on the rebound from me?’ Billie whispered doubtfully.

‘Didn’t it ever cross your mind that Calisto and I had as much in common as a dog and a cat?’ Alexei enquired drily. ‘What drew me back to her was familiarity—my
recollection of how I felt about her as a teenager and the fact I couldn’t have her. Of course what I wanted then from a woman is not at all what I want now. It took me a while to appreciate that Calisto only married Bethune because at that time he was a better financial bet than I was, as a son still dependent on a father for support.’

Billie was afraid to have faith in what he was telling her. It was true that he and Calisto had appeared to have nothing in common. She had wondered what he could see in a fashion model who shared none of his interests. But she had also known that love was reputedly blind and had feared that beauty and sex appeal had won out over common sense. Now when he told her otherwise she wanted so much to believe that message but she was afraid to.

‘I thought you were so happy with her,’ Billie framed.

‘The first fine flush lasted…oh, all of five minutes,’ Alexei confided, his handsome mouth forming a sardonic twist in acknowledgement. ‘I refused to listen to my doubts because, as I told you, I was ready for something more, something deeper, and when Calisto reappeared it felt like fate.’

Billie winced. ‘Fate can be cruel.’

Alexei frowned and nodded agreement. ‘If only you had told me about us, at least I would have stopped and listened.’

‘If you were infatuated with her, I don’t know that you would have.’

‘You didn’t give me the chance,’ he reminded her. ‘In fact you assumed the worst of me at every stage and expected nothing. That was the real problem. That was what kept us apart.’

Billie reckoned that she had spent too long on the sidelines of Alexei’s life watching him live up to his bad reputation to credit that he might behave differently with her. And yet, even as she recognised that fact, she also recognised that Alexei had always treated her with a lot more respect and kindness than he’d employed with the other women in his life. She had never been just an employee, forced to respect strict boundaries, and in the same way he had always looked out for her interests.

‘Why did you really break up with Calisto?’ Billie finally asked.

‘She wasn’t right for me. I don’t want to do her down,’ Alexei confessed ruefully, his strong jaw line hardening, ‘but I saw her as she really was the day I found her screaming abuse at a toddler on
Sea Queen.
’

‘On St George’s Day, when you were entertaining the islanders on the yacht?’ Billie questioned, referring to the saint’s day when everyone who lived on Speros celebrated the holiday. ‘What toddler?’

‘The little boy you took to find his mother. Before that, he had bumped into Calisto and put chocolate handprints on her skirt. I found her shouting at him and the poor little chap was sobbing his heart out. I couldn’t stay with a woman who could treat a young child like that, and when she turned her attention on you that same afternoon that was the last straw,’ he admitted grimly. ‘She has a vicious streak I can’t accept.’

Well aware of how that vicious streak had offended and wounded other employees, Billie said nothing. Naturally she had known that Calisto had had character traits wholly at odds with Alexei’s engrained sense of fairness and courtesy, but that Alexei could have found Calisto’s verbal attack on her that same day intolerable
touched her heart. Calisto had accused her of flirting with Alexei. Now all of a sudden Billie was appreciating that Alexei had cared even then about her, even if she hadn’t realised it.

‘I didn’t love her,’ Alexei breathed, reaching down to close his hands round Billie’s and draw her upright. ‘I never loved her. Why would I risk my marriage to sleep with her again?’

Her hands quivered in the warm hold of his and she lifted fearless eyes to him. ‘You didn’t care about our marriage when you walked out on me. You didn’t believe that Nicky was your son either…’

His ebony brows drew together. ‘Be fair. You took me by surprise and I was devastated by the fallout on our wedding night. You are the one woman in the world whom I’ve always totally trusted,’ he reasoned urgently, and pink discomfiture coloured her upturned face with regret. ‘And it did all sound crazy at the time.’

‘You didn’t love me when you married me…’

Long brown fingers framed her cheeks to hold her troubled eyes steady. ‘I didn’t
know
I loved you when I married you. I thought I was being so sensible choosing you when, all the time, you
were
the only choice. Because, right then, you were the only woman I wanted,’ he told her ruefully. ‘Then it all blew up in my face. I didn’t know how I felt. I didn’t even realise why it all hurt so much. I just felt betrayed.’

Her fingers stroked over his and gripped tight in apology. ‘I know. I know how impossible I made it for you but there was no easy way to go about telling you.’

His lean hands held hers tight. ‘Telling me the truth upfront,’ he countered. ‘Trusting me the same way I trust you—’

Sentenced to stillness by the tender look in his dark golden eyes, Billie breathed in deep. ‘So, you’re not chasing Calisto again?’

‘No, and she’s already called me to let me know that she has issued a public rebuttal to that effect,’ Alexei incised and then, with an unexpected touch of amusement, ‘Along with the news that she’s got engaged again and she doesn’t want rumours of an adulterous association with me to spoil that.’

‘Engaged again? But to whom?’ Billie prompted in astonishment.

‘A very wealthy Parisian banker. He’s a lot older than she is, but she says older men are more reliable and, since he already has adult children, he’s not expecting her to have a child with him,’ Alexei completed.

‘But when I saw Calisto in Paris, she made it quite clear that she wanted you back.’

‘But I didn’t want her and the banker was obviously her back-up plan. I’m relieved she’s found someone,’ Alexei said wryly. ‘I can hand over her affairs to an accountant with a clear conscience.’

And seeing his relief, Billie finally believed that only his sense of responsibility had urged him to go to Calisto’s assistance after their relationship had ended. It was as if a weight fell off her shoulders and a dark shadow was jerked from her thoughts. With a sigh she leant forward and rested her head down on his shoulder. ‘I’m relieved as well.’

‘But you didn’t need to be. I love you,’ Alexei pointed out doggedly. ‘The minute you started talking about divorcing me, I wised up fast. That was a really sensible move of yours—it brought me to my senses.’

‘It wasn’t a move!’ Billie exclaimed in stark
disconcertion at the charge. ‘It seemed the only solution if you couldn’t forgive me for keeping you in the dark about Nicky.’

Alexei bent his arrogant dark head and claimed her mouth with hot, hard brevity that left her breathless, her slim body curving into his and alight with the desire for more. ‘The moment you threatened me with a divorce I got off my high horse. It brought me to my senses and I stopped wallowing in your sins. I didn’t want to lose you,
agapi mou
,’ he murmured, rubbing his knuckles down over her cheekbone in a tender gesture. ‘I couldn’t
bear
to lose you. I’ve spent the last few weeks trying to show you that but sometimes I feel like I’m banging my head up against a brick wall.’

‘I was so jealous and insecure about Calisto that she came between me and my wits,’ Billie confessed in a rush, finally allowing herself to believe that she was loved and revelling in the adoring intensity of his gaze on her face. ‘You have been making me very happy, but I was so hurt when you didn’t seem to feel anything when I told you how I felt about you.’

‘I’m sorry. For a while I didn’t think I could trust anything you said,’ he confided candidly. ‘I was angry, bitter and disappointed in you and it was a while before I could move on from that to concentrate on what’s really important. And what’s really important is that you
had
our son and now we have the rest of our lives to spend together.’

The rest of our lives.
The warmth of his gaze, the buoyancy of his dark deep drawl wrapped round her vulnerable heart like a blanket of reassurance. She hugged him close, a pulse of happiness pounding through her
as she let go of her fears and insecurities and finally felt free to claim her happy ending.

‘I love you,’ she whispered.

He drew her out of the shade of the oak tree into the bright sunlight and on into the dim cool of the chateau. But it was Billie who headed straight for the stairs and the privacy of their bedroom while throwing a half-embarrassed, half-teasing glance over her shoulder at him. Before they got there, however, another concern stole the lightness from her mood. ‘We haven’t even talked about Lauren, or what we’re going to do about her,’ she reminded him heavily.

Alexei swung her back to face him. ‘We’ll deal with her together,’ he murmured with quiet resolve. ‘She needs to respect our privacy as a family. But it’s only thanks to that article that I know how long you’ve cared about me.’

Billie reddened and screened her eyes. ‘I didn’t want you to know that.’

‘I cared about you too,
agapi mou
,’ he traded softly. ‘And in ways I couldn’t count or explain. I never liked seeing you tired or cross or unwell. I always wanted to make you happy. I hated seeing you with another man. When I had no right to be, I was very possessive of you. Your friendship with Damon Marios really got to me and made me angry and jealous.’

‘But it never was anything but a friendship.’ Billie shivered as he ran down the zip on her dress and eased it down her arms, pausing to claim a hungry, driving kiss that went on and on and on because she was clinging to him with a heart that was pounding as hard as a road drill inside her chest.

‘I love you like crazy,’ she told him breathlessly as
he tugged her down on the bed with him, finally accepting that he loved her and he was hers in every way that mattered. Suddenly she finally grasped why he had stealthily instructed that all the master-suite beds in his various homes were renewed. He was thinking about her feelings and doing what he could to acknowledge them.

‘And you believe me about Calisto? I am suing the
Sunday Globe
over that photo of me with her,’ Alexei breathed. ‘I know now why Lauren’s story wasn’t published immediately—the paper was waiting and hoping to get proof that I was having an affair with Calisto, but when they couldn’t they dug out an old photo instead.’

‘I know you’re not having an affair.’ Billie gazed up at him with her heart in her eyes and his smile felt like sunshine on her skin. ‘And if you’re still in the mood, I have reconsidered: I would like to have another child soon.’

‘That’s a very sexy invitation, Mrs Drakos,’ Alexei purred, disposing of his shirt with careless grace and baring a hair-roughened muscular torso that seemed to beg for the touch of her appreciative hands. ‘Are you sure?’

‘More sure than I’ve ever been about anything,’ Billie confessed, regretting the hurt she knew she had inflicted when she was unable to give him her trust. There was love and tenderness in his expressive golden eyes and, although it felt as if it were the first time she was seeing those emotions, she knew they had been there in recent weeks as well, only she had been too blind to recognise them for what they were. She had been equally thick-headed when it came to acknowledging that the
average boss didn’t treat his PA to hot chocolate topped with melted marshmallows at the end of a difficult day, or send her off on a spa break. Nor, if he was Alexei Drakos, did he offer to cut down on the other women for a mere fancy. But she had not read those signs, had thought too little of herself to recognise that she was special to him.

‘I’ll never stop loving you,’ he swore with all the passion and intensity of his powerful temperament.

‘Well, I did try to get over you lots of times, but it just never worked,’ Billie admitted more prosaically.

And Alexei laughed with considerable appreciation…

Eighteen months later, Billie tucked her infant daughter, Kolena, into her cot.

Dark-eyed and red-haired, Kolena was a delightful mixture of her parents’ genes. Nicky hung over the side of the cot watching his sister and pushed a stuffed toy at her hand. The little starfish fingers closed round the bear, but then the baby’s eyes slid drowsily shut.

‘Kolena’s sleeping again,’ Nicky complained, his little boy’s restive body humming with suppressed energy.

‘It’s been a long day for her.’ Billie smiled as she thought back on a day of great enjoyment at the christening party held at Hazlehurst Manor. For the first time in her life she had contrived to have both of her parents in the same room. It was true that at the outset of laying eyes on her former fiancée and daughter’s father, Lauren had merely nodded frostily across the room at Desmond, but her resistance had crumpled when Desmond complimented her on her continuing youthful good looks. Billie had last seen her mother
and father chatting companionably at the buffet and was relieved that her parents could now meet without any awkwardness.