Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon Read online

  Even back then he’d been good at masking his feelings—she hadn’t known for days he’d been as instantly smitten by her as she’d been by him. It was an attribute that had served him well in his unexpected new career. He’d easily been able to slip into the varied persona required of him as a successful male model. Smouldering and sophisticated in a tuxedo, or sporty and athletic on a yacht, he’d always looked the part on billboards all over Europe.

  He’d got so good at donning those masks that towards the end she’d begun to wonder had she ever seen the true Cristos. But at the word divorce his mask slipped and the raw anguish that momentarily darkened his eyes made her heart skip a beat. But it was gone so quickly she might have imagined it.

  ‘Nothing about where you’ve been, what you’ve been doing—all you want to do is demand a divorce,’ he said in a forced, neutral tone. But the tension in his jaw, the shadow in his eyes told her he wasn’t as cool about it as he appeared.

  She swallowed hard. ‘It can’t come as a surprise. We’ve been separated for two and a half years. That’s more than enough grounds to dissolve our marriage.’

  ‘So my lawyer told me when I instructed him to instigate proceedings two years after your desertion. The separation was proof the marriage had irretrievably broken down. That’s all that’s required.’

  His words sounded so grim, so final. The excitement and passion of their early years together had disintegrated into disillusionment. Yet now, just looking at her husband made her remember exactly why she’d defied her family to marry him, given up her own dreams to let him follow his. But that was yesterday. She had to be strong. Good sex and fun weren’t enough to build a lifetime on. She’d learned that on a heart-wrenching night in Milan two and a half years ago, alone in a hospital in a country where she didn’t speak the language as she’d miscarried in pain and anguish, tears streaming down her face for all she had lost.

  She cleared her throat. Although she’d practised the words over and over, they didn’t come easily. ‘I want to be free, to perhaps marry again one day.’

  His mouth set in a tight line. ‘Is there someone else?’

  ‘He’s just a friend at this stage.’

  Steady, reliable Tim, as different from Cristos as it was possible for a man to be. There had not been one word of romance expressed between them but Hayley had sensed Tim wanted to grow the friendship into something more. She wanted security, stability, not the tumult her life with Cristos had been.

  ‘Where did you meet this man?’

  ‘In Sydney. But he’s not—’

  ‘You’ve been living in Australia?’ He hissed a string of curse words in Greek. During their time together she’d worked to learn his language, but he’d refused to teach her the curses—such language was not befitting his wife. If he only knew it was nothing to what she heard in her job as a mechanical engineer—a woman in what was still essentially a man’s world.

  ‘I didn’t think to look for you in Australia, of all places,’ he said.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘It was as far away from you as I believed I could get. I have an aunt there. My parents arranged it.’

  He was silent for a long moment as he looked down at her, searching her face. ‘Did I hurt you that badly?’ His voice was low and hoarse.

  She nodded, too choked to risk attempting to speak.

  His words sounded as though they were being torn from him. ‘So many times I’ve regretted the way I left you alone that day, that I wasn’t there when you needed me. I—’

  Hayley had tried to block that final scene with him from her memory; it was too painful to revisit. She put up her hand to stop him. ‘I don’t want to hear this,’ she said.

  His dark brows drew together. ‘Like you didn’t want to hear it then. You wouldn’t let me explain or try to make it up to you. You were hurting but so was I and you kicked me to the kerb. Then left me and ran so far away I couldn’t find you. After all we’d gone through together you did that. Now you show up out of the blue, crash my family’s party and—’

  ‘Please. I don’t want to go there. It’s over.’ Her voice broke. ‘I just want a divorce. That’s the only reason I’m here.’

  ‘You could have had divorce papers served on me from Australia. Notified me where you were so my lawyer could be in touch with yours. You shouldn’t be here, Hayley.’

  He turned from her, slanted his broad shoulders away so she once more could see the happy gathering outside the church doors.

  ‘I hope I’m not intruding on a special family occasion,’ she said a little stiffly. His family had hardly been what you would call welcoming to Cristos’s young English bride the one and only time she had met them. His cousin Alex had been the exception.

  ‘Alex and his Australian wife, Dell, are renewing their wedding vows. It’s a special day for them, a gathering only for family and close friends.’ His tone let her know she was now pointedly excluded from those categories.

  ‘Your grandmother’s maid told me. She said they’d only been married two years ago. I’m glad he found someone after the horror he went through.’

  Alex’s then fiancée had been killed in a hostage situation. It had made the news all around the world. ‘We’re all grateful to Dell,’ Cristos said. The wife who had been accepted by the family, as opposed to Hayley, the unwelcome one.

  She knew she didn’t have the right to access his family news but she was curious. ‘Why are they renewing their vows so soon? Isn’t it usually older people who do that?’

  ‘They had to get married in a hurry because their daughter Litza was on the way. Dell wanted to affirm their vows in a more relaxed manner.’

  She looked towards the couple. ‘Oh. That must be their little girl with Alex.’ The red-haired cherub was gurgling with laughter. ‘And Dell has a baby in her arms who looks just like a tiny Alex.’ Hayley forced her voice into neutral. She didn’t trust it not to quiver when she talked about babies. Especially to Cristos.

  Hayley actually knew quite a lot about Alex and Dell. She’d been dismayed when she’d got all the way to Sydney to find even there she couldn’t escape Cristos’s family. Alex had been Australian born and a hospitality tycoon. His relocating to Greece after his tragic loss and finding happiness with Dell was ongoing fodder for the press.

  ‘Their son, Georgios. He was born just a year after Litza.’

  Hayley couldn’t meet his eyes. The tension between them must be palpable. Their baby would have been just a little older than the little girl being proudly held by Alex if she hadn’t miscarried that terrible night. But she couldn’t, wouldn’t talk about that. Strained silence from Cristos told her he couldn’t either.

  The breeze had picked up. She shivered and huddled deeper into her coat—the beautiful, expensive coat Cristos had given her out of guilt for one of his lengthy absences. ‘I’ve come from a hot Sydney summer. It’s freezing here. Not at all how I imagined an idyllic Greek island. I mean, it’s beautiful but so chilly. Why did they choose to renew their vows in winter?’

  ‘Alex and Dell wanted to have the ceremony here in the chapel where they got married. The resort is fully booked out all through the warmer months. In summer they would not have had the privacy they wanted.’

  She looked over to the group outside the chapel. ‘I’m happy for them,’ she said. ‘I liked Alex when I met him and Dell looks lovely.’

  ‘You weren’t invited but he’ll be glad to see you. And Dell must be dying to be introduced.’

  Hayley took an abrupt step back. ‘No! I’ve come to talk to you about the divorce and then go. The boat is waiting to take me back to Nidri.’

  Cristos closed the gap between them with one long stride. ‘You can’t do that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ He was too close. This close she was too aware of his warmth, his scent, his strength.

  ‘I can’t allo
w you to disrupt this special day.’

  ‘That was not my intention,’ she said. ‘I just—’

  He spoke over her, his tone low and urgent. ‘Alex and Dell have been through more than you know. Allow them their day of celebrating their commitment to each other. Your abrupt departure would cause even more speculation than your arrival and put the focus on us instead of them. That wouldn’t be fair. You’ve turned up here uninvited. But you are still legally my wife. Despite our separation, it would be expected that you would greet Alex and Dell and congratulate them. I’m asking you to do the right thing.’

  Why did he have to put it like that—appealing to her innate sense of justice? ‘I suppose I could say hello,’ she said tentatively. Although it would take a monumental effort to congratulate the happy couple on their successful marriage while her own was in its death throes. ‘It wouldn’t take long to chat with them and then slip away to the boat.’

  Cristos shook his head. ‘That would cause even more disruption than if you left right now. There is to be a lunch at the resort. Stay here for that. Surely we can be civil to each other. But don’t mention the divorce to anyone. It’s none of their business. Let people think we are discussing reconciliation. Just until the party is over and you can leave with the other guests.’

  She frowned. ‘You mean pretend I’m still your wife?’

  He shrugged. ‘If you put it that way. Just for a few hours. Legally you are still my wife.’

  ‘You mean I’d have to act loving and—?’ Her breath started to come in tight gasps at the thought of it and she had to put her hand to her chest.

  ‘Just civil would do, if you find the thought of pretending an affection you no longer feel so distressing,’ he said. ‘Just keep it dignified. You’ve caused me enough humiliation.’

  ‘I don’t know that I could face explanations and—’

  ‘No explanations would be required. I have told my family nothing of what happened between us.’

  And, no doubt, his relatives had assigned all the blame for the end of their union to her. Slowly, she shook her head, forced her breathing to return to something resembling normality. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t do it.’ Such a charade would bring back old memories, old feelings she had fought so hard to put behind her.

  He frowned his displeasure. ‘Do it for my cousin’s sake who liked you and stood up for you. Don’t let us ruin this day for them.’

  Us. How thrilled she’d been when they’d become a couple. How she’d loved to drop those magical words we and us into the conversation, preferably while flashing her engagement ring at the same time. Now Cristos used the word in such a different context it made her shudder. Us united in a charade of dishonesty. Although, she was forced to admit, it would be with the best of intentions and just for a few hours. She sighed out loud. He still knew which of her buttons to press. The last thing she’d ever want to do was ruin someone else’s hard-won happiness. Everyone in Sydney knew the tragedy Alex had gone through.

  She looked up at Cristos. At that handsome, handsome face that had once been so beloved. ‘I’ll do it. Then after lunch I’m out of here. With the divorce papers signed.’

  And she would say goodbye to her husband for the very last time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CRISTOS FISTED HIS hands by his sides. He could lie to himself all he liked but his indifference towards his wife was just another mask. Seeing Hayley again had stripped it away, leaving raw the ache for her he had never been able to suppress.

  Call it desire, need, obsession—when she had first smiled at him across that crowded pub in Durham it had lodged in his heart like an arrow from Eros, the ancient Greek god of love and desire. He had found it impossible to wrench it out—even when he had tried to hate her for the way she had left him.

  What he had felt for her defied logic, reason, common sense. But it hadn’t been enough to see them through the loss of their baby, a time that should have brought husband and wife closer together in a shared grief rather than driven them inexplicably apart. What had gone wrong? He needed answers. And he had to get them from Hayley before she took that boat back to Nidri.

  Of course, it wasn’t as simple as that. Hayley had barricades up around her that might be impenetrable. But Cristos was an optimist. To be a successful gambler you had to be an optimist. And he was a gambler. His was not the kind of reckless, addictive gambling that had driven his late father to embezzlement and fraud and stints in prison. Not to mention unending shame for his mother’s family.

  Cristos’s gambling took the form of calculated business risks that had led him to invest in start-up internet businesses—most of which had succeeded beyond all expectations. At not yet thirty, he was a multimillionaire. These days the wide spread of his investment portfolio ensured his fortune was secure—and kept growing. Yet he kept the gambler aspect of him a secret from his family. And had never shared it with Hayley.

  His father had died when he’d been thirteen, followed six months later by the death of his mother. His grandparents had brought him back to Nidri, aged fourteen, to live with them. He’d been embraced with love by his grandparents and extended family. But he’d soon become uncomfortably aware of how closely he was scrutinised.

  He looked so like his father that his family were terrified he had inherited his nature as well as his good looks. It felt as if they were always waiting to pounce and stamp out any undesirable traits. As soon as he’d realised that, he’d become adept at masking his feelings, hiding his true risk-taking self. It was allowed to come out only when he played football where a winner-takes-all attitude was encouraged.

  He had started investing in a small way in app developments by his fellow students at university but had kept both his successes and failures well hidden. Even though he saw himself as a canny businessman, he could never admit to his worried grandparents that he could be in any way like his father, the man they blamed for the death of his mother, their only daughter. The secrecy had become a habit, another mask he was beginning to weary of wearing.

  But optimism was all he felt now as he looked down into Hayley’s face—a face he had doubted he would ever see again. It was difficult to stop himself from glancing at her every few seconds just to reassure himself she was really there. The sheen of her hair, the blue of her eyes, the curve of her mouth. She was here with him, in the same country, by his side. They were headed for divorce. But he intended to make the most of the hours ahead to get answers to the questions that had plagued him. Then he could put her firmly in the past and move on without being haunted by guilt or bitterness.

  That was a much better position than he could have dreamed he’d be in when he’d thought back to their wedding this morning.

  ‘Alex is looking our way. Let’s go say hi,’ he said. It seemed natural to reach for her, to fold her much smaller hand in his for the first time in years. But she stiffened against him.

  Did she hate him so much she couldn’t bear the most simple of touches?

  ‘You agreed to do this—we have to make it look believable,’ he said in a gruff undertone intended only for her.

  He could tell the effort it took for her to release the tension from her body. ‘I guess so,’ she said, expelling a sigh.

  She left her hand in his as he led her towards the chapel but there was no answering pressure, no entwining of her fingers through his. Their linked hands were purely for appearances’ sake. But it signalled they were together—for today at least. The fewer questions his family had about her sudden appearance, the better. They would take their cues from him. If he appeared unperturbed they would not question what Hayley was doing here.

  His cousin and his wife had been posing for photos with their children but had now handed them over to their doting grandmothers. Cristos was glad. He would find it impossible to keep his mask in place if he had to watch Hayley react to the children, knowing how much she had wan
ted the baby they had lost that terrible night in Milan. The night that was branded on his memory for ever, to be brought out and poked and prodded in an agony of self-recrimination for failing her. But there had also been fault on her part. He had wanted the baby, but she had not allowed him to share her grief—let alone acknowledge his.

  He’d been in a business meeting—a meeting that had turned out to be pivotal to his rapid rise to riches. The deal he’d done that night had been a major step up to the fortune he had sought as security for his wife and the family they had wanted to raise together. He’d had his phone turned off. When he had switched it on it had been to find a series of messages from Hayley, escalating in urgency until the last one had said she was being taken by ambulance to hospital.

  When he’d got there it had been too late. She had lost the baby. And he had very quickly realised he had lost his wife.

  Now Alex and Dell stepped forward from their crowd of well-wishers to greet him and Hayley. He could tell Dell was bubbling over with curiosity about this unexpected visit from the wife she had never met but had heard so much about. He had to tamp down on his own curiosity at what his lovely wife had been up to since their split. Who was the man who had prompted her to seek a divorce? Jealousy, dark and invasive, roiled in his gut. It was an emotion relatively new to him. He had always felt certain of Hayley’s fidelity. But he had spent the past two and a half years tormented by graphic imaginings of her in the arms of another man.