‘Tell me, have you heard anything from Ariadne? Her mobile phone isn’t working. Coustakis must have cancelled it—he’s vindictive enough to do that, after disowning her as he has! My guess is she’s gone to stay with her maternal grandmother’s relatives in Scotland. But I don’t know their whereabouts, or even their name.’
His mother shook her head. ‘I have heard nothing from Ariadne either. I try not to worry, but—’
Xandros gave her what reassurance he could. ‘Well, she has a mind of her own—she’ll turn up when she wants to.’
It was the best he could say. No point giving voice to his own growing suspicions of just why Ariadne had bolted, or where she might be now... She was no longer his concern.
Only her half-sister was. The half-sister who held a sensual allure for him that Ariadne had never had, for all her dark beauty. The half-sister he was due to marry in a handful of days, as soon as the paperwork permitted.
His mother would not come—it would be easier that way, both for her and for his bride. After all, theirs was not going to be a real marriage—not by anything other than legal definition. It was simply a means to an end. Two ends. Business, yes. And also pleasure...
The low purring started up along with the powerful engine of his car as he headed back to Athens. Oh, yes...very, very decided pleasure. Pleasure that he was having to exercise all his self-control not to start indulging in before the knot was tied.
That tantalising but fleeting kiss in the hotel restaurant was a torment to remember, and when she’d come to see his apartment he’d had to busy himself with his mail in order to keep his hands off her. Especially when he?
?d found her gazing at his bed...as if she were already envisaging them there together.
He’d so very nearly obliged her... But he’d drawn back, permitting himself only that light, brief touch on her shoulders—and even that had been a torment before he’d released her again...
It was a torment he was schooling himself to endure. A rushed seduction in a hotel room, or even at his apartment, was not what he wanted. No, there was only one place he wanted to make Rosalie his own...
One perfect place he yearned to be with her...
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY WERE DINING out the night before their wedding. Not at the hotel this time, but at what was obviously a very exclusive restaurant. Rosalie was thankful that it wasn’t crowded or noisy. Nor was it, as far as she could tell, a fashionable watering hole for their generation.
‘I thought you might like somewhere quiet,’ Xandros said as they sat down at their table. ‘This place is one of my mother’s favourites when she’s in town, for that very reason.’
Rosalie looked at him. ‘Your mother?’ Her brow furrowed and she spoke hesitantly. ‘I...I didn’t realise that she was still...well, still alive.’
‘Very much so,’ Xandros answered drily. ‘She doesn’t live in Athens, but out in the country. I’ll take you to meet her sometime after our wedding.’ He paused, and then he said, quite deliberately, ‘She understands about our marriage.’
He didn’t say any more, and Rosalie didn’t probe. After all, did it really matter if Xandros’s mother existed? It wasn’t as if she was going to be a real mother-in-law any more than Xandros was going to be a real husband. And not just because their marriage was going to be so brief...
Her eyes went to him as he consulted the waiter about tonight’s menu choices, taking in, as she always did, the sable feathering of his hair, the curve of his sensual mouth, the dark, long-lashed expressive eyes. She felt her senses heighten, wanting only to gaze at him, at just how incredibly, fatally attractive he was...
She remembered how she’d gazed at him that very first time, open-mouthed, when she’d opened the door of that rundown rental property to see him, unable to tear her eyes away from him.
And she still couldn’t.
The same feeling of regretful melancholy went through her as she’d felt in his apartment. She must learn to subdue her growing longings. She must accept that she had read too much into that brief, fleeting and unrepeated kiss of greeting at the hotel restaurant that first night. For him it had been nothing more than a casual public salutation. It had meant nothing more than that.
‘Pre-wedding nerves?’ he asked.
He’d caught her expression and misinterpreted it, and she was glad he had—because there was no point him thinking anything else.
‘There truly is no need for them,’ he said. His dark eyes held hers. ‘Rosalie, I want you to enjoy the kind of life you’ve never had before.’
His eyes washed over her and she felt their force—impossible not to. Any woman would feel it. Especially one so starved of romance as she was...
But Xandros was making it clear that he didn’t want romance to be a part of their marriage. So, although his eyes were warm upon her, although he always complimented her on her appearance, his attitude towards her was nothing more than friendly, easy-going and companionable.
She must be glad of that—grateful. Grateful that her life of hardship and endless penny-pinching was done with. That, after all, was why she was marrying Xandros. For nothing more.
She must remember that.
Or else torment herself with yearning for what was not going to happen...