* * *
Anna came from the bathroom stall out into a beautiful, Ottoman-styled bathroom. Large mirrors adorned high arched walls covered in exquisitely detailed tiles in shades of blue and white. As women bustled around the room she was almost surprised not to see them in period dress.
As she washed her hands she caught sight of Birgitta at the basin beside her.
‘So you are Dimitri Kyriakou’s new bride.’ The statement was accompanied by such a deep study, Anna wondered if Birgitta was trying to understand why Dimitri had chosen her.
‘Yes, I suppose that would be me. Unless he has another one squirrelled away that I don’t know about.’
With a slight inclination of a perfectly smooth shoulder, Birgitta sidestepped Anna’s attempt at humour. ‘Though I wouldn’t expect it of Kyriakou, there are certainly some men out there I wouldn’t put it past.’
Anna honestly couldn’t tell if Birgitta was being funny or not. ‘You mean Danyl?’
An arched eyebrow reminded Anna that she was speaking of royalty on a far too familiar basis.
‘If the Sheikh of Ter’harn were married, I doubt very much that I would be here.’
With no trace of self-pity in her tone, Anna couldn’t help but marvel at the woman’s apparent stoicism.
‘Oh, don’t look at me like that,’ Birgitta continued in a weary tone. ‘I know what my role is here tonight. Danyl,’ she said, ‘needs a bride. My family need me to make a good marriage.’ Another shrug of her beautiful shoulder punctuated her concluding statement. ‘We—wives or potential wives—are nothing more than conveniences and possessions. We make of it what we will. And don’t misunderstand me—I will make the most of this.’ The determination in Birgitta’s tone made Anna reassess the woman in an instant. She only hoped that Danyl knew what he was getting into.
But her words had struck a chord within Anna. She certainly hadn’t been a convenience for Dimitri, she knew that much. But the determination, the idea that she could make something of this, rather than sit passively by and let things happen to her... Hadn’t that been what Dimitri had said to her the night of their wedding? That she needed to ask for what she wanted?
Was she so terrified, she thought sadly, that she had truly stopped asking for things for herself, for her future? Was she so convinced that she would be rejected, or left, abandoned, that she had stopped even thinking of her future, of herself?
As she re-entered the ballroom she located Dimitri easily amongst the throngs of people. The breadth of his strong shoulders drew her to his innate power. As if sensing her, he turned, his eyes finding her in a heartbeat. The hairs on Anna’s arms rose, goosebumps raining down over her skin at the sensual promise of his gaze.
She wasn’t willing to allow this marriage to simply happen to her. If she wanted to make their marriage work, then she couldn’t live in fear, or hold herself back. She needed to have faith in both her husband and herself, faith that he wouldn’t leave her and faith that she was good enough to make him stay. And, with that thought ringing in her ears, she took a glass of champagne from the nearest waiter, taking a deep drink and allowing the bubbles to explode in her throat, sparking excitement and something like hope deep within her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dear Dimitri,
Today I found you. The real you.
DIMITRI HAD DELIVERED the keynote speech about the poverty that was affecting Greece’s families, the orphanages that were filled not just with orphans, but also with children with loving parents who had turned them over to the state because they simply couldn’t care for them whilst holding down the myriad jobs they needed to take to keep a roof over their heads. He’d highlighted the plight of just a few small families, giving voice to the crisis that affected so many, and he’d felt righteousness ring in his voice—a righteousness that he so rarely felt about his own business these days, aside from the need to compensate for Manos’s awful actions.
He’d tried to avoid thoughts of his half-brother’s betrayal for so long, but now that the limousine pulled up to the apartment he hadn’t stepped foot in for over three years, he wondered if Anna could sense the dark thoughts that were descending upon him. One look at Anna, who had shifted in her seat to look up at the large building towering over the port’s skyline, the silks of her skirt rising up against perfect thighs, and Dimitri struck down the well of arousal firing within him, instead focusing on Danyl’s insightful question.
No, he thought. Anna didn’t understand his difficult feelings about love, didn’t understand how it had been routed out of him by his father’s aloofness and his mother’s death. Didn’t understand how it had been impossible for him to let a woman get close to him. How impossible it still was. He cursed himself, thinking that he should tell her. Warn her. But the words wouldn’t come.
‘This is yours?’ she asked, awe evident in her tone. From any other woman, he’d find it jarring, a leading question that instantly became calculating. But no matter how much he searched her voice, he couldn’t accredit Anna with that.
‘Yes,’ he bit out gruffly into the night as he escorted her from the car.
He entered the foyer, pulling out the key card for the lift access to the penthouse apartment, feeling rather than seeing Anna follow on his heels. Mirrors lined the lift, rose-gold lighting turning Anna’s skin an even more delectable shade. Standing so close, he could smell her perfume in the air, warmed by her body. His hands itched inexplicably, desperate to reach out. As if she sensed that need somehow, she leaned ever so slightly towards him and for a moment he fought against the desire to step back, to create some kind of distance...the distance that was with them before he’d taunted her on their wedding night. Before he’d laid a challenge, a demand, at her feet.
He should have let her have her paper marriage, because ever since that moment, his brain had seemed to stop functioning and instead he was immersed in feelings, wants and needs he’d been able to prevent for years.
The doors to the lift opened up directly onto the foyer of the apartment.
Dimitri didn’t know what he’d expected. Owing to his brother’s use of it, he’d somehow imagined the walls to be painted black...evidence of drugs and prostitution perhaps—the things that he had bought with other people’s money. Perhaps broken TVs and plates from one of Manos’s legendary tantrums.
Anna swept past him, deeper into the apartment.
‘This is lovely,’ she said, looking around the open-plan kitchen and living room. And it was. It didn’t have any incredible floor-to-ceiling windows wrapping around the apartment, but the balcony leading from the master suite could be seen through the windows of the living room.
But, despite the incredible view, it wasn’t enough. It didn’t feel open enough. The walls were beginning to press down on him, as if his whole being was shaken with the need for air, for the open sky. Memories of his time in the care system, of the small, bunk-bed unit in the prison, each thought scratched against him like barbs, drawing thin lines of blood invisible to the eye.