CHAPTER FOUR
TANSYROSEINCREDIBLYearly the next day and then had to fill the empty hours that stretched before the late-afternoon ceremony.
Only after lunch did she begin getting ready. She slid into the diaphanous lingerie, relishing the smooth, unfamiliar slide of silk against her skin and the pretty adornments of lace and ribbon. The dress zipped, she slipped on the high-heeled courts and donned the jacket. The unruly tumble of her hair round her shoulders made her wince because it looked untidy. Her hair needed to go up to set off the stylish rose-coloured suit. With deft fingers she braided her hair and anchored it to her head. A text arrived to tell her when she would be picked up and she was down in the foyer ahead of time, nervous as a cat on hot coals.
It isn’t every day you get married, she soothed herself, but it wasn’t as if it were a real marriage. Love didn’t come into their agreement and she had to admit that that made her sad, because she had always assumed that when she got married she would genuinely care about her partner. This marriage is for Posy though, she reminded herself, don’t make it personal. But the recollection of her little sister frightened her as well at that moment because she was imagining how Jude Alexandris might react to the revelation that she had been less than honest with him. He would be angry. She hadn’t told him an actual lie, but she certainly hadn’t matched his forthrightness either.
Pale and taut, Tansy entered the waiting room in the register office feeling slightly nauseous with nerves. Jude was already there, tall, dark and devastatingly spectacular in a dark grey designer suit that accentuated his sleek, athletic build. Just looking at him stole the breath from her lungs. From the bronzed glow of his skin to his glossy black curls and wide, sensual mouth, he emanated compelling masculine allure. Her tummy flipped and her heart thumped in her ears as she collided with glittering dark golden eyes enhanced by inky black lashes. All of a sudden her legs felt disconnected from the rest of her. A hint of a smile curved his beautifully shaped mouth, lighting up his lean, shockingly handsome features, and she blinked, utterly dazzled by that sudden flash of powerful charisma.
‘Who will be acting as the witnesses?’ she whispered as she drew level with him.
‘My security guards. These past weeks I’ve seen enough of lawyers to last me a lifetime,’ Jude confided with grim amusement, a big hand curving to her spine to urge her forward as the registrar’s assistant signalled them.
He didn’t like her hair up, Jude mused, but she did look very stylish and rather more mature, although when her eyes danced with amusement, her inner teenager shone out like a neon light. He suspected she was the sort of woman given to giggling at inappropriate moments. But that sassy smile, accompanied by the downward-cast eyes and the soft flutter of her lashes as she nibbled at her fuller lower lip, ensnared his attention every time. That hint of uncertainty and shyness was incredibly enticing. He invariably went for bolder women, who laid out sex like an all-you-can-eat buffet, no questions asked, nothing on the forbidden list. He liked straightforward, he liked simple, he didn’t like room left for misunderstandings or women who played games, available one day, strategically unavailable the next.
Tense at the awareness that matrimony was a solemn event and shaken by the knowledge that she was, in many ways, making a mockery of it, Tansy bolted her knees together and stood as straight and still as she could. Without fanfare the ceremony began. Jude lifted her hand and slid a fine-plaited platinum wedding band onto her finger. Her hand trembled damply in his, her responses breathless as her apprehension climbed. No matter how hard she tried to stay in the moment, her brain kept jumping ahead to Jude’s likely reaction when she collected Posy from her stepfather, and she was soon right on the edge of panic. My goodness, Calvin had better be outside waiting on time, she reflected anxiously!
‘So, now I’m a married man,’ Jude mused reflectively as Tansy roamed ahead of him, impatient to leave the building. ‘We’re not in a hurry. We’ve plenty of time to get to the airport.’
‘We’re going straight to the airport?’ Tansy checked in apparent surprise.
‘Didn’t I tell you that?’
‘No,’ she said flatly, because she had already noticed that he didn’t bother telling her anything that he didn’t think she needed to know.
‘Our Greek wedding is tomorrow.’
‘Oh, joy,’ she muttered tautly as she stepped out onto the street, several other men joining the pair that accompanied them and fanning out across the pavement while a limousine nudged in at the kerb ahead of them.
But Tansy shifted sideways, her attention locked not to the car but to the pretty young blonde holding a baby several feet away. ‘Susie…’ she framed in relief, reaching for her sister and anchoring the smiling baby on her slim hip. ‘Where’s her stuff?’
‘What stuff?’ Susie asked blankly, already backing away. ‘Look, I have to go. Calvin will go spare if he gets a ticket—’
‘I packed a bag for her… I need her pushchair!’ Tansy gasped.
Susie shrugged. ‘Sorry… I didn’t see it. We only brought her.’
Tansy watched incredulously as her stepfather’s girlfriend hurried off without a care in the world, indeed, probably glad to see the back of both of them. Tansy out of the house and Susie freed of the expectation that she would ever have to look after Calvin’s daughter again could only be a win-win on Susie’s terms.
‘What’s going on?’ Jude demanded with a frown of bewilderment, watching the baby cling to Tansy like a little limpet and dab playful little kisses across Tansy’s face in what was obviously a regular game between them. Mother and child? Jude froze, shattered by the suspicion.
‘Sir…?’ Spiros prompted, standing at the open passenger door of the limo in readiness for their departure.
Jude unfroze with difficulty and pressed a hand to Tansy’s spine to move her towards the car. With a presence of mind that astonished Jude, Spiros leant into the car and popped out a built-in child’s car seat in readiness for the unexpected passenger. Jude hadn’t even realised the limo offered such an option.
The woman who had told him that she was a virgin was a mother? And she had deliberately concealed the fact? Jude was in shock. But he had married a woman who was a stranger. All he knew about her was that she liked money enough to sell herself into marriage for it. He had taken a huge risk, hadn’t he? He should have had Tansy fully investigated in advance instead of simply taking her at face value. What madness had possessed him? The simple fact that the minute he had laid eyes on her he had wanted to lay her down on the nearest bed and lose himself in her? Yet when he knew so little about her, she could never have been the safe option her stepfather had sworn she was.
It was his own fault: he hadn’t been willing to spare the time it would have taken to run the usual checks on Tansy. He had been in too much of a hurry, too eager to press ahead with the marriage after Althea had let him down. And his impatience had brought its own punishment.
In the ghastly silence that stretched inside the limousine, Tansy, having secured Posy in the car seat, broke out in nervous perspiration. ‘I’m really, really sorry that I didn’t tell you about her beforehand,’ she whispered guiltily. ‘I was scared you would change your mind about marrying me.’
Jude shot glittering dark golden eyes to her corner of the limousine and flung her a sardonic appraisal. ‘You think?’
‘I’ll grovel if you want me to but please don’t shout in front of Posy. I don’t want her to get upset,’ Tansy confided. ‘If you’re still taking me to Greece with you—’
‘You’re my wife now. I don’t see that I have much choice.’ Jude ground out that admission.
‘I’ll have to buy a load of baby things at the airport because Calvin didn’t send any of her stuff with her,’ Tansy muttered apologetically.