She recoiled in shock and her anger unleashed. ‘Of course I didn’t. But would you be listening to me if I wasn’t pregnant?’
Giorgos sent Damon the iciest look she’d ever seen. ‘You know about our mother?’
‘Yes. I will ensure Eleni receives care from the best specialists.’
Giorgos shook his head. ‘Our doctor is ready to give her a check-up now.’
Eleni gaped. Did her brother think she was somehow incapacitated?
Damon answered before she could. ‘I don’t think that’s necessary—’
‘It is entirely necessary. She must be—’
‘Stop trying to overrule each other.’ Eleni interrupted Giorgos again, her heart and head pounding. ‘My medical decisions will be made by me.’
‘Dr Vecolli is already here,’ Giorgos insisted.
‘I’m not seeing Dr Vecolli.’
‘He’s been our family physician for twenty years.’
‘Which is exactly why I’m not seeing him. He’s like a grandfather to me. I would like to see a female doctor.’ She glared as Giorgos frowned at her. ‘What, do you think no woman can be a doctor, or is it just me you thought so incapable I couldn’t even be trusted with animals?’
‘I once wanted to be an airplane pilot.’ Giorgos dripped cold sarcasm. ‘But you know we cannot hold down a full-time job while fulfilling royal duty. It is impossible.’
‘Why?’ she challenged. ‘Couldn’t I be useful other than cutting ribbons and awarding prizes?’
‘You’re going to have your hands full with your baby, or had you forgotten that?’
Eleni flared anew at Giorgos’s patronising tone. ‘So while plenty of other mothers work, I can only be a brood mare? Do you think I’m that incompetent?’ She was outraged—and hurt.
‘I don’t think you’re—’ Her brother broke off and ran a hand through his hair.
‘Why are we so enslaved by the past?’ she asked him emotionally. ‘Just because things have always been done a certain way, doesn’t mean they always have to continue in that same way.’ And she was more capable than he believed her to be—wasn’t she?
Giorgos was silent for a long moment. Then he sighed softly. ‘Then how do you plan to manage this?’
‘By marrying Damon. I’ll have the baby and then...’ She drew in a steadying breath. ‘Beyond that, I don’t really know. But I don’t want all those limitations on me any more. They’re untenable.’
She braced for his response. She couldn’t yet tell him her marriage had an end date already. One let-down at a time was enough.
Giorgos’s expression revealed more now. But he didn’t need to worry; this wedding wouldn’t end the world.
‘It could be leaked that Eleni was corralled into the wedding with Prince Xander.’ Damon broke the tense silence. ‘She was too afraid to stand up to you and the Prince. Public sympathy will be on her side if it is cast as a forbidden love story.’
She didn’t deserve public sympathy.
‘She fell in love with me during her secret hospital visits.’ Damon embroidered the possible story. ‘But you refused your consent for her to have a relationship with a commoner. She was so distraught she really did get sick. Only then did you realise how serious she was.’
Eleni winced at the scenario he’d painted. Did everyone need to know she’d been unable to stand up for herself? More importantly, it didn’t do her brother justice.
‘Do we need to make Giorgos sound such a bully?’ She frowned.
Giorgos’s eyes widened with an arrested expression.
‘Prince Xander is still the injured party,’ Damon continued after a beat. ‘But it can be spun that they’d not spent much time together. Therefore her defection won’t make him appear any less attractive.’
Eleni smothered her startled laugh. Damon was light years more attractive than Xander.
For a long moment Giorgos studied the painting hanging on the wall opposite him. With every passing second Eleni’s heart sank—recriminations and rejection were inevitable.
‘You might have met your match, Eleni.’ Giorgos slowly turned to her, the wryest of smiles in his eyes. ‘He won’t curl round your little finger.’
‘The way you do?’ Eleni dared to breathe back.
‘You will be married in the private chapel today.’ Giorgos’s steely seriousness returned. ‘I will release a public proclamation together with a few photographs. You will not make a public appearance. Rather you will go away for at least a month.’
‘Away?’ Eleni was stunned at the speed of his agreement.
‘You need to get your personal situation stable while this fluff is spread in the press.’ Giorgos’s sarcasm edged back. ‘You’ll go to France. I have a safe house there.’
‘But the safest house of all is this one,’ Eleni argued. She was not letting her brother banish her. Not when she had to get to grips with a husband she barely knew and to whom she could hardly control her reaction. Staying home would give her the space and privacy to deal with Damon.
‘Remaining in Palisades would give Damon a chance to learn palace protocol and understand the expectations for our...future.’ She glanced at Damon, fudging just how short their future together was going to be.
Damon shrugged but his eyes were sharp. ‘I’m happy to hang here for a while if that’s what you wish, Eleni.’
‘I am scheduled to spend a few weeks at the Summer House,’ Giorgos said stiffly. ‘So that would work.’ He turned icily to Damon. ‘But understand that I will be watching you, even from there. I don’t trust you.’
‘Fair enough,’ Damon answered equally coolly. ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t either.’ He smiled as if he hadn’t a care in the world. ‘I’ll not take a title, by the way. I’ll remain Damon Gale.’
‘While I’ll remain Princess Eleni Nicolaides,’ Eleni answered instantly.
‘And the child will be Prince or Princess Nicolaides-Gale—we get it,’ Giorgos snapped. ‘Let’s just get everything formalised and documented before it leaks. I expect you at the chapel in an hour. Both of you looking the part.’
Her brother stalked towards the door, his posture emanating uptight King.
* * *
‘I’ll send someone to the yacht to fetch a suit,’ Damon drawled once Giorgos had left. ‘I guess you’d better go magic up a wedding dress.’
She stared at her fiancé and clapped a hand over her mouth in horror.
‘Don’t worry.’ Damon’s satisfied smile turned distinctly wicked. ‘You can wear as little as you like—I will not say no. That busty blue number you wore at the ball would be nice—’
Flushing hotly, Eleni swiftly walked out on him, desperately needing a moment alone to process everything. But her maid hovered at the door to her suite, the woman’s expression alert with unmistakable excitement.
‘Oh, Bettina. I’m sorry I’ve been away.’ Eleni quickly pasted on a smile. ‘And I’m not back for long.’
Bettina nodded eagerly. ‘I have done the best I can in the last half hour. I’ve hung the samples so you can choose. There are nine altogether—from New York, Paris, and one from Milan.’
‘Samples?’ Eleni repeated, confused.
‘The wedding dresses.’
Nine wedding dresses? Eleni gaped. If that wasn’t being spoilt, she didn’t know what was.
‘Would you like to try them on?’
Eleni saw the sparkle in her maid’s eyes and realised the fiction that Eleni was marrying her long-secret love had already spread. She drew in a deep breath and made her smile bigger. ‘Absolutely.’
But her smile became a wide ‘oh’ as Bettina wheeled out the garment rack she’d hung the gowns on. And then Eleni surrendered to vain delight—at the very least she could look good on her wedding day.
The sixth option was the winner; she knew as soon as she stepped into it. It was exactly what she’d choose for herself—not as something befitting ‘Princess Eleni’. The sleek dress with its svelte lines and delicate embr
oidery was subtle but sexy and she loved it.
As Eleni walked away from her maid, her suite and her life as she knew it, butterflies skittered around her stomach, but she determinedly kept her smile on her face.
She couldn’t let the fairy-tale image fall apart just yet.
Giorgos stood waiting for her at the entrance to the private chapel. Her smile—and her footsteps—faltered as she saw his frown deepening. But this might be her only chance to speak to him privately.
‘I’m sorry I let you down,’ she said when she was close enough for only him to hear.
‘You haven’t.’ Her brother held out a small posy of roses for her.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she took the pretty bouquet from him. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
He nodded, stiffly. ‘Do you love him?’ Giorgos suddenly asked.
The direct question stole her breath. For the first time that she could recall, her brother looked awkward—almost unsure—as he gazed hard at a spot on the floor just ahead of them.
She couldn’t be anything but honest. ‘I don’t know.’
That frown furrowed his brow again. ‘Make it work, Eleni.’
* * *