could keep her firmly under his thumb in retribution.
Today he was simply the man who’d seemingly bagged one of the most eligible bachelors in the world for his daughter—not the once illustrious but now downtrodden businessman who’d lost the Petras fortune his father had left him.
The doors to the church yawned open, ready to receive their unwilling sacrifice. My footsteps faltered and my father sent me a sharp look. Unable to meet his eyes without setting off the spark of mutiny attempting to rekindle itself inside me, I kept my gaze straight.
I needed to do this for my mother.
I spotted her in the front row, her head held high despite her fate, and it lent me the strength to put one foot in front of the other. The slight weight of my grandmother’s envelope in my pocket helped me ignore the rabid curiosity and speculative whispers of three hundred strangers.
Unfortunately there was only one place left to look. At the towering figure of the man waiting in perfect stillness facing the altar.
He didn’t twitch nor fidget. Didn’t display any outward signs of being a nervous groom.
His broad back and wide shoulders seemed to go on for ever, and his proud head and unyielding stance announced his power and authority. He didn’t speak to the equally tall, commanding figure next to him, as most grooms did with their best man. In fact both men stood as if to military attention, their stance unwavering.
My gaze flicked away from Axios Xenakis, my breath stalling in my throat the closer I approached. Even without seeing his face I sensed a formidable aura—one that forced me again to wonder why he was doing this. What did he have to gain with this alliance?
He could have any woman he wanted. So why me?
And why had several butterflies suddenly taken flight within my belly?
Wild instinct urged me to fan my rebellion to life. Fight or flight. Pick one and deal with the consequences later.
But even as the thoughts formed they were discarded.
I had no choice. None whatsoever.
But maybe this man I was marrying would be a little more malleable than my father. Maybe—
He turned. And the feeble little hope died a horrible death.
Eyes the colour of polished gunmetal bored into me as if they were with fierce, merciless hooks. They probed beneath the veil with such force that for a moment I imagined I was naked—that he could see my every weakness and flaw, see to the heart of my deepest desire for freedom.
His lips were pressed into a formidable line, his whole demeanour austere. Axios Xenakis could have been in a boardroom, preparing to strike a deal to make himself another billion euros, not poised before an altar, about to commit himself to a wife he’d never met.
I catalogued his breathtaking features. Wondered if that rugged boxer’s jaw ever relaxed—whether the cut-glass sharpness of his cheekbones ever softened in a smile. Did he maintain constant control of those sleek eyebrows so they were permanently brooding? Did his nose ever wrinkle in laughter?
Why was I interested?
I was nothing but part of a transaction to him—one he didn’t seem entirely thrilled about, judging by his icy regard. So it didn’t matter that the olive vibrancy of his skin drew from me more than a fleeting look, or that he was without a doubt the most strikingly handsome man I’d ever seen.
He was a world removed from the boys I’d sneakily dated at university, before my father had found out and ruthlessly thwarted my chances with them before anything resembling a relationship could form.
Axios Xenakis belonged in a stratosphere of his own. One I was apprehensive about inhabiting.
My footsteps stalled and I heard my father’s sharp intake of breath. It was swiftly followed by the tight grip of his hand in warning.
Don’t disgrace the family.
Defiance sparked again.
But then I saw my mother’s head turn. The ubiquitous misery filmed her eyes, but alongside it was a look so fierce it might have been a reflection from my grandmother’s eyes.
It was a look that infused me with courage.
It’s up to you, it said. Do this…or don’t.
My heart thundered. The need to turn around and simply walk away was a wild cyclone churning through me.
At the altar, Axios’s eyes never shifted from me, his stance unchanging in the face of my clear reluctance. It was as if he knew what I’d decide and was simply waiting me out.
And, since I was playing in a game whose rules no one had bothered to apprise me of, there was only one move I could make.
I would play this round, then fight my corner later.
With that firm promise echoing inside me, I stepped up to the altar.
I saw a fleeting disappointment in his eyes before he masked his features. He was disappointed? Did that mean he didn’t want this?
Wild hope flared within me even as bewilderment mounted. If he didn’t want this then there might be room to negotiate. Room to get what I wanted out of this.
Realising I was staring, and that my father had been dispatched and I was now the sole focus of Axios Xenakis’ eyes, I hurriedly averted my gaze. But not before acknowledging that up close he was even more electrifying. Perhaps it was the severity of his grey suit. Or the fact that the hand he held out to me screamed a silent command.
The last strains of the hymn trailed away, leaving behind a charged silence. With each second it weighed heavier, pressing down on me.
His hand extended another inch, and heavy expectation thickened the air.
With a deep breath, inevitably I slipped my hand into his—and joined the stranger who was to be my husband.
Almost immediately he released me. But the sensation of his touch lingered, and a sizzling chain reaction I was unprepared for travelled up my arm, flaring wide.
It was enough momentarily to drown out the intonation of the priest’s voice as he began the ceremony.
I rallied long enough to murmur the words I’d reluctantly memorised and, when the time came, to pick up the larger of the two platinum wedding bands.
With fingers that still trembled I faced Axios. The impact of his eyes, his towering frame, the much too handsome face momentarily erased the words from my brain.
In silence he held out his left hand, his laser eyes boring into me as he simply…waited.
‘I take thee…’
‘For better or worse…’
‘With my body…’
‘Love, honour, cherish…’
‘Till death…’
With each spoken vow my heart squeezed tighter, the mechanical delivery I’d expected to give morphing into a whispered outpouring wrapped in consternation.
The second I was done he reached for the other ring without taking his eyes off me, again holding out his hand for mine.
And then Axios Xenakis spoke for the first time.
‘I, Axios Xenakis, take thee, Calypso Athena Petras…’
The rest of his words were lost to me as the deep, hypnotic cadence of his voice struck like Zeus’s thunderbolt into a place I didn’t even know existed until that moment.
His voice was…sexy. Alluring. Magnetic.
It seemed impossible that a voice could be all those things, and yet I felt every one.
The