‘I have business to discuss with Isidore,’ Jude told her, striding towards the sitting room. ‘I’ll see you later.’
Tansy fell still. ‘We’re both sleeping in here?’
Jude hitched a mocking black brow. ‘We’re married, and did you really expect separate rooms when the old man is desperate for me to provide the next generation of the family?’
Tansy shifted uneasily where she stood. ‘You said you’d give me time.’
‘And so I will,’ Jude murmured lazily. ‘I’m not sex-starved. I can share a bed with you and resist temptation.’
On the way out of the room, he came to a sudden halt and glanced back at her from lushly lashed narrowed eyes. ‘I should warn you. Althea Lekkas will be one of the guests tomorrow. Isidore invited her and I suppose, on the face of things, it will look better from the guests’ point of view that there’s no apparent bad blood between us,’ Jude declared with a curled lip because he was already weary of Althea’s numerous texts begging for details about his replacement bride. He just wanted her to back off and leave him in peace.
‘No skin off my nose,’ Tansy countered brightly. ‘I know nothing about her or your relationship.’
‘We’ve known each other since we were kids. She was my first love. It didn’t work out but we’ve remained friends,’ Jude advanced with a shrug.
His first love. She wondered why that description only increased her curiosity. It wasn’t as though she were attached to Jude in any way or possessive of him. Tansy stiffened, irritated by her desire to know more about Jude’s past than she had any good reason to know. Keep it impersonal, she urged herself, keep that distance. They could be polite and civilised and sexual, she assured herself, without bringing any real feelings into it. It had to be that way; she couldn’t afford to get involved on any deeper level because that way she would get hurt. Jude needed a wife and he would be happy if she gave him a child, but he had said that at most they would be together for only a couple of years. Nothing lasting or permanent was on offer and it would be a disaster if she allowed herself to become fond of him on any level.
Jude departed and Tansy investigated the other doors that led out of the bedroom, discovering a packed dressing room. Her wedding dress was there in a protective wrap and she uttered a quiet prayer that it would fit. All the other clothes that had been ordered that first day in Jude’s office sat in neat piles on shelves, hung from rails and tumbled in a rainbow of opulence in drawer after drawer. Shoes and bags filled an entire cabinet. She had only ever seen such an array of clothing inside a big store.
In a haze of growing exhaustion, she left the suite to check that Posy had settled for the nanny. Unsure where her sister had been put to sleep, she had only reached the top of the stairs when the housekeeper, Cora, appeared and showed her where to go. Posy was soundly asleep in a fancy cot with Kerry in the room next door. On the way back to bed, Cora asked Tansy if she had any special requests for breakfast the following morning while informing her that Jude’s grandfather had instructed that the usual technicians attend Tansy to prepare her for her wedding day.
Tansy twirled in front of the cheval mirror, pleased with the perfect fit of the gown. An off-the-shoulder neckline and tight half sleeves completed the sophisticated look. Delicate beads and fabulous diamonds shimmered as she moved. Romantic lace motifs overlaid the tulle that snugly encased her from the shoulder, with the skirt falling in soft layers to her feet, hemmed by the same lace that swept back into a small cathedral train. Her mass of hair was up to anchor the magnificent diamond tiara that sat like a crown on her head, while the collar of diamonds encircling her throat and the matching bracelets cast rainbow reflections on the rug below her feet.
From the moment Tansy had wakened she had been waited on hand and foot. Her breakfast had been served in bed with the indent on the pillow next to hers the only evidence that at some stage of the night Jude must have joined her and slept beside her. Tansy remembered nothing after climbing into the blissfully comfortable bed. A hair stylist had arrived after breakfast, soon followed by a nail technician and a beautician. Tansy had insisted on doing her own make-up because she didn’t like it too heavy. A maid arrived to tell her that Jude’s grandfather, Isidore, was waiting downstairs to accompany her to the church.
Tansy descended the stairs with great care because her heels were extremely high. She was disconcerted when the older man extended an arm to her and murmured almost pleasantly, ‘You look very well indeed, my dear, and the diamonds are the ultimate embellishment. Do you like them?’
‘Yes… I’ve never worn diamonds before. Have these pieces been in the family long?’
It was a lucky question. Isidore Alexandris smiled and rested back in the limousine to tell her the history of the jewellery she wore, careful to tell her the worth of each item as well as what was paid for it at auction. She was suitably impressed. That conversation lasted them through the heavy Athens traffic all the way to the doors of the grand church chosen for the traditional ceremony. There she was surprised to see Jude in the entrance hall waiting for her, surrounded by his bodyguards.
Tansy walked through the double doors and Jude fell silent. An impossibly slender figure in delicate white draperies, she looked dazzlingly beautiful. The superb collar of diamonds encircling her elegant white throat and the tiara shining in her luxuriant dark blond hair were the perfect additions. He was stunned by the smile on his grandfather’s face because it looked genuine.
‘You look superb,’ Jude breathed, handing her a beautiful bouquet of tumbling white roses and gypsophila.
Pleased colour brightened Tansy’s cheeks as she looked up at him. Even in her high heels, he still towered over her and he looked hotter than hot in a splendidly tailored dark grey tailcoat, waistcoat and narrow trousers, his glossy black curls glinting in the sunshine illuminating the glorious stained-glass window behind him. Shimmering dark golden eyes of appreciation were welded to her and slow, pervasive heat filtered through her, making it a challenge to breathe.
‘You may not have done as badly as I thought with her,’ Isidore whispered, startling his grandson before he could walk down the aisle with his bride. ‘She’s bright and she may be penniless but so, essentially, is Althea, and Althea’s flighty into the bargain, which is worse.’
Jude almost laughed, astonished that Tansy had won even that amount of grudging approval from the older man, who only the night before had sworn that no Alexandris had ever chosen a less worthy bride.
Tansy hadn’t realised that the Greek Orthodox ceremony would be as long or as elaborate. The exchange of rings, the carrying of a candle followed by the symbolic crowns and the circling of bride and groom were driven by Jude’s nudging guidance and she blushed and stumbled and hesitated more than once, just praying that her uncertainty went unnoticed. The church was packed. At the end of the service, her slim shoulders relaxed from rigidity and she was able to accompany Jude back outside with a little more assurance.
‘I could have done with a rehearsal for that,’ Tansy quipped, ready to reach for Posy when she saw her in the nanny’s arms but prevented by Jude.
‘You can see her at the reception,’ he pointed out smoothly as a wall of cameras and shouted questions greeted them outside the church.
‘When did your mother pass away?’ Tansy asked curiously as they climbed into the waiting limo.
‘Clio’s still alive. Where did you get the idea that she was dead?’ Jude demanded.
‘I just assumed. I mean, I read online about the divorce and your father’s car crash but that was years ago. I thought that a mother would always attend her son’s wedding and there’s been no sign of her—’
‘Clio would sooner drink poison than come to an Alexandris social event and run into my grandfather. They hate each other.’
‘That’s sad,’ Tansy opined. ‘When you don’t have much in the way of close family you’d prefer them to get on.’
‘That’s life,’ Jude pronounced cynically but his lean, strong face had clenched hard, hinting that he was less comfortable with those divisions than he was prepared to acknowledge. ‘I may not have close family but I do have numerous cousins. I saw little of my mother growing up. We’re not close. She’s Italian and she returned to Italy following the divorce.’