“I’ll marry you, Leo,” she said.
* * *
They were wed four days later.
The ceremony was small and quiet, held in the ballroom of Leonidas’s house—“Your house now,” he’d told her with a shy smile. A home wedding was perfect. The last thing Daisy wanted was more attention.
After all the pictures paparazzi took of them together at the charity ball, the story that Leonidas Niarxos had impregnated the daughter of the man he’d put into prison had exploded across New York media. For a few days, photographers stalked their quiet West Village lane. Daisy felt almost like a prisoner, afraid to go outside.
Even after they’d decided to have the wedding ceremony at home, Daisy had nervously wondered how her friends would be able to get through the media barricades.
Then a miracle happened.
The day before their wedding, a scandal broke about a movie star having a secret family in New York, a longtime mistress and two children, while he also had a famous actress wife and four children at his mansion in Beverly Hills. The national scandal trumped a local one, and all the paparazzi and news crews and social media promoters left Leonidas and Daisy’s street to stalk the movie star and his two beleaguered wives instead.
Daisy spent her last day before the ceremony finalizing the details with the wedding planner, who’d been provided by Liontari’s PR department, and then going to a lawyer’s office to sign a prenuptial agreement which, in her opinion, was far too generous. “I’m not looking to get more money,” she’d protested to her fiancé. “You’ve already given me a million dollars.”
“That money means nothing to me. I always want you and the baby to feel safe,” Leonidas said.
“But the prenuptial agreement would give me millions more. It just doesn’t seem fair.”
“To who?”
“To you.”
Smiling, he’d taken her in his arms. “I’m fine with it. Because I never intend for us to get divorced.” Lowering his head to hers, he’d whispered, “You’ve made me so happy, Daisy...”
They spent the last night before their wedding in bed. Daisy never wanted him to let her go.
And now he never would.
On the morning of their wedding, as she got ready, Daisy was overjoyed to see the spring sun shining warmly, with almost no paparazzi left on the street to bother them.
She invited only about twenty friends to the ceremony. She’d been too cowardly to call Franck in California and tell him she was getting married. She’d decided to tell him after the honeymoon. She told herself she didn’t want to have to refuse him, if he offered to walk her down the aisle
in lieu of her father. No one could replace her father.
Daisy already felt disloyal enough, marrying the man who’d killed him.
No, she told herself. Leonidas didn’t kill my father. He just accused him of forgery.
If only she could believe her father really had been guilty. Because if her father had knowingly tried to sell a forged painting, how could she blame Leonidas for refusing to be swindled?
But her father had sworn he was innocent. How could Daisy doubt his word, now that he was dead? Even now, she felt guilty, wondering if her father was spinning in his grave at her disloyalty.
She would walk down the aisle alone.
Coming down the stairs, Daisy paused in the quiet foyer before entering the ballroom. Giving a nervous smile to the hulking guards who stood by the mansion’s front door, providing security for the event, she clutched her bouquet of lilies against her simple white silk shift dress. A diamond tiara glittered in her upswept hair, along with the huge diamond on her finger.
Everything for today’s ceremony, including Leonidas’s tuxedo, had been carefully chosen from Liontari’s various luxury brands, ready to be pictured, packaged and posted by the official wedding photographer onto social media accounts, and released to newspapers around the world.
“You can’t buy this kind of press,” the PR woman had said, smacking her lips.
Daisy might have preferred something a little less fancy. But Leonidas had already given her so much. He’d barely gone to work all week. When he’d asked her if she minded if their wedding promoted Liontari brands, she’d wanted to help. She’d had only one prerequisite.
“As long as the dress is comfortable,” she’d said. And it was, the white silk loose and light against her skin.
With a deep breath, Daisy opened the ballroom doors.