The Fallen Greek Bride\At the Greek Boss's Bidding (31 page)

“You were beautiful as a New York debutante, and you’re even more beautiful now. And it has nothing to do with your name, or the Stile fortune. Nothing to do with your marriage or your divorce or the work you do as an administrator. It’s you. Grace Elizabeth.”

“You don’t know me,” she whispered, trying to silence him.

“But I do. Because for two weeks I lived with you and worked with you and dined with you, and you changed me. You saved me—”

“No.”

“Elizabeth, I didn’t want to live after the accident. I didn’t want to feel so much loss and pain. But you somehow gave me a window of light, and hope. You made me believe that things could be different. Better.”

“I wasn’t that good, or nice.”

“No, you weren’t nice. But you were strong. Tough. And you wouldn’t baby me. You wouldn’t allow me to give up. And I needed that. I needed you.” He paused. “I still do.”

Her eyes closed. Hot tears stung her eyelids.

He reached over, skimmed her cheeks with his fingers. “Don’t cry,” he murmured. “Please don’t cry.”

She shook her head, then turned her cheek into his palm, biting her lip to keep the tears from falling. “If you needed me, why did you let me go?”

“Because I didn’t feel worthy of you. Didn’t feel like a man who deserved you.”

“Kristian—”

“I realized that night that if I’d been able to see, I would have been in control at the castle in Kithira. I could have read the situation, understood what was happening. Instead I stood there in the dark—literally, figuratively—and it enraged me. I felt trapped. Helpless. My blindness was creating ignorance. Fear.”

“You’ve never been scared of anything,” she protested softly.

“Since the accident I’ve been afraid of everything. I’ve been haunted by nightmares, my sleep disturbed until I thought I was going mad, but after meeting you that began to change. I began to change. I began to find my way home—my way back to me.”

She simply stared at him, her heart tender, her eyes stinging from unshed tears.

“I am a man who takes care of his woman,” he continued quietly. “I hated not being able to take care of you. And you are my woman. You’ve been mine from the moment you arrived in the Taygetos on that ridiculous donkey cart.”

Her lips quivered in a tremulous smile. “That was the longest, most uncomfortable ride of my life.”

“Elizabeth,
latrea mou,
I have loved you from the very first day I met you. You were horrible and wonderful and your courage won me over. Your courage and your compassion. Your kindness and your strength. All those virtues you talked about in Kithira. You told me appearances didn’t matter. You said there were virtues far more important and I agree. Yes, you’re beautiful, but I couldn’t see your beauty until today. I didn’t need your beauty, or the Stile name, or your inheritance to win me. I just needed you. With me.”

“Kristian—”

“I still do.”

Eyes filmed by tears, she looked up, around her small living room. Normally it was a rather austere room. She lived off her salary, having donated nearly all of her inheritance to charity, and it never crossed her mind to spoil herself with pretty things. But tonight the living room glowed, cozy and intimate with candlelight, the beautifully set table and strains of Greek music, even as the most delectable smells wafted from the kitchen.

The restaurant owner appeared in the doorway. “Dinner is ready,” he said sternly. “And tonight you both must eat.”

Elizabeth joined Kristian at the table, and for the first time in weeks she enjoyed food. How could she not enjoy the meal tonight? Everything was wonderful. The courses and flavors were beyond brilliant. They shared marinated lamb, fish with tomatoes and currants, grilled octopus—which Elizabeth did pass on—and as she ate she couldn’t look away from Kristian.

She’d missed him more than she knew.

Just having him here, with her, made everything feel right. Made everything feel good. Intellectually she knew there were problems, issues, and yet emotionally she felt calm and happy and peaceful again.

It had always been like this with him. It wasn’t what he said, or did. It was just him. He made her feel good. He made her feel wonderful.

Looking across the table at him, she felt a thought pop into her head. “You know, Cosima said—” she started to say, before breaking off. She’d done it again. Cosima. Always Cosima. “Why do I keep talking about her?”

“I don’t know. But you might as well tell me what she said. I might as well hear all of it.”

“It’s nothing—not important. Let’s forget it.”

“No. You brought it up, so it’s obviously on your mind. What did Cosima say?”

Elizabeth silently kicked herself. The dinner had been going so well. And now she’d done the same thing as at the castle in Kithira. Her nose wrinkled. “I’m sorry, Kristian.”

“So tell me. What does she say?”

“That before you were injured you were an outrageous playboy.” She looked up at him from beneath her eyelashes. “That you could get any woman to eat out of your hand. I was just thinking that I can see what she meant.”

Kristian coughed, a hint of color darkening his cheekbones. “I’ve never been a playboy.”

“Apparently women can’t resist you...ever.”

He gave her a pointed look. “That’s not true.”

“So you didn’t have two dates, on two different continents, in the same day?”

“Geographically as well as physically impossible.”

“Unless you were flying from Sydney to Los Angeles.”

Kristian grimaced. “That was a one-time situation. If it hadn’t been for crossing the time zones it wouldn’t have been the same day.”

Elizabeth smiled faintly, rather liking Kristian in the hot seat. “Do you miss the lifestyle?”

“No—God, no.” Now it was his turn to smile, his white teeth flashing against the bronze of his skin. Sun and exercise had given him the most extraordinary golden glow. “Being a playboy isn’t a picnic,” he intoned mockingly. “Some men envied the number of relationships I had, but it was really quite demanding, trying to keep all the women happy.”

She was amused despite herself. “You’re shameless.”

“Not as shameless as you were last August, checking me out by the pool...
despite
us having a deal.”

“I
wasn’t
looking.”

“You were. Admit it.”

She blushed. “You couldn’t even see.”

“I could tell. Some things one doesn’t need to see to know. Just as I didn’t need to see you to know I love you. That I will always love you. And I want nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you.”

Elizabeth’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t even breathe.

Kristian stood up from the table and crossed around to kneel before her. He had a ring box in his hand. “Marry me,
latrea mou,
” he said. “Marry me. Come live with me. I don’t want to live without you.”

His proposal shocked her, and frightened her. It wasn’t that she didn’t care for him—she did, oh, she did—but
marriage.
Marriage to another Greek tycoon.

She drew back in her chair. “Kristian, I can’t... I’m sorry, I can’t.”

“You don’t want to be with me?”

All
she wanted was to be with him, but marriage terrified her. To her it represented an abuse of power and control, and she never wanted to feel trapped like that again.

“I do want to be with you—but marriage...” Her voice cracked. She felt the old pressure return, the sense of dread and futility. “Kristian, I just had such a terrible time of it. And it shattered me when it ended. I can’t go that route again.”

“You can,” he said, rising.

“No, I can’t. I really can’t.” She slid off her chair and left the table. She felt cornered now, and she didn’t know where to go. He was in her house. The restaurant owner and the waiter were in her house. And it was a little two-bedroom house.

Elizabeth retreated to the only other room—her bedroom—but Kristian followed. He put his hand out to keep her from closing the door on him.

“You accused
me
of being a coward by refusing to recover,” he said, holding the door ajar. “You said I needed to get on my feet and back to the land of living. Maybe it’s time you took your own advice. Maybe it’s time you stopped hiding from life and started living again, too.”

Firmly, insistently, he pushed the door the rest of the way open and entered her room. Elizabeth scrambled back, but Kristian marched toward her, fierce and determined. “Being with you is good. It feels right and whole and healthy. Being with you makes me happy, and I know—even if I couldn’t see before—it made you happy, too. I will not let happiness go. I will not let you run away, either. We belong together.”

She’d backed up until there was nowhere else to go. She was against her nightstand, cornered near her bed, her heart thundering like mad in her chest.

“You,” he added, catching her hands in his and lifting them to his mouth, kissing each balled fist, “belong with me.”

And as he kissed each of her fists she felt some of the terrible tension around her heart ease. Just his skin on hers calmed her, soothed her. Just his warmth made her feel safe. Protected. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“I know you are. You’ve been afraid since you lost your parents, the year before your coming-out party. That’s why you married Nico. You thought he’d protect you, take care of you. You thought you’d be safe with him.”

Tears filmed her eyes. “But I wasn’t.”

He held her fists to his chest. “I’m not Nico, and I could never hurt you. Not when I want to love you and have a family with you. Not when I want to spend every day of the rest of my life with you.”

She could feel his heart pounding against her hands. His body was so warm, and yet hard, and even with that dramatic scar across his cheek he was beautiful.

“Everything I’ve done,” he added, tipping his head to brush his lips across her forehead, “from learning to walk again to risking the eye surgery, was to help me be a man again—a man who was worthy of you.”

“But I’m not the right woman—”

“Not the right woman?
Latrea mou,
look at you! You might be terrified of marriage, but you’re not terrified of me.” His voice dropped, low and harsh, almost mocking. “I know I’m something of a monster, I’ve heard people say as much, but you’ve never minded my face—”

“I
love
your face.”

His hands tightened around hers. “You don’t bow and scrape before me. You talk to me, laugh with me, make love with me. And you make me feel whole.” His voice deepened yet again. “With you I’m complete.”

It was exactly how he made her feel. Whole. Complete. Her heart quickened and her chest felt hot with emotion.

“You make sense to me in a way no one has ever made sense,” he added, even more huskily. “And if you love me, but really can’t face marriage, then let’s not get married. Let’s not do anything that will make you worry or feel trapped. I don’t need to have a ceremony or put an expensive ring on your finger to feel like you’re mine, because you already are mine. You belong with me. I know it, I feel it, I believe it—it’s as simple and yet as complicated as that.”

Elizabeth stared up at him, unable to believe the transformation in him. He was like a different man—in every way—from the man she’d met nearly three months ago.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, seeing her expression. “Have I got it wrong? Maybe you don’t feel the same way.”

The sudden agony in his extraordinary face nearly broke her heart. Elizabeth’s chest filled with emotion so sharp and painful that she pressed herself closer. “Kiss me,” she begged.

He did. He lowered his head to cover her mouth with his. The kiss immediately deepened, his touch and taste familiar and yet impossibly new. This was her man. And he loved her. And she loved him more than she’d thought she could ever love anyone.

Kissing him, she moved even closer to him, his arms wrapping around her back to hold her firmly against him. His warmth gave her comfort and courage.

“I love you,” she whispered against his mouth. “I love you and love you and love you.”

She felt the corner of his mouth lift in a smile.

“And I don’t care if we get married,” she added, “or if we just live together, as long as we’re together. I just want to be with you, near you, every day for the rest of my life.”

He drew his head back and smiled down into her eyes. “They say be careful what you wish for.”

“Every day, forever.”

“Grace Elizabeth...”

“Every day, each day, until the end of time.”

“Done.” He dropped his head and kissed her again. “There’s no escaping now.”

She wrapped her arms around him, reassured by the wave of perfect peace. “I suppose if you’re not going to let me escape, we might as well make it legal.”

Kristian drew his head back a little to get a good look at her face. “You’ve changed your mind?”

A huge knot filled her throat and she nodded, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Ask me again. Please.”

“Will you marry me,
latrea mou?
” he murmured, his voice husky with emotion.

“Yes.”

He kissed her temple, and then her cheek, and finally her mouth. “Why did you change your mind?”

“Because love,” she whispered, holding him tightly, “is stronger than fear. And, Kristian Koumantaros, I love you with all my heart. I don’t want to be with anyone but you.”

* * * * *

Keep reading for an excerpt from
Playing the Royal Game
by Carol Marinelli

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