my small brain?”
His eyes glimmered, her mocking tone had made him smile. “You shouldn’t listen to everything your father says,” he cheerfully drawled. “Only the good things about me.”
She could easily have slapped his cheeky face. She knew exactly why Christos Pateras was marrying her. He wanted her dowry. Her dowry and her father’s shipping interests. When Darius passed away, Christos would inherit Lemos’s empire. “You’re overly confident.”
“So say my critics.”
“You have many?”
“Legions.”
She offered him her profile, grinding her teeth together. This was a joke to him and he toyed with her like a cat with a mouse. She struggled to contain her temper, her smooth jaw tightening. “You’re mad if you think I’ll marry you.”
“Your father has already consented to the marriage. The dowry has changed hands—”
“Change it back!”
“Can’t do that. I need you too much.”
She turned her head, her brilliant gaze catching his. “Despite what you both think, I am neither mindless, nor spineless. Since you appear to have difficulty with your hearing, let me say it again. I will not marry you, Mr. Pateras. I will never marry you, Mr. Pateras. I’d rather grow old and gray in this convent than take your name, Mr. Pateras.”
Christos rocked back on his heels and fought his desire to smile. Her father said she was difficult but he hadn’t mentioned his daughter’s intelligence, or spirit. There was a difference between difficult and spirited. Difficult was unpleasant. Spirited was something a man quite enjoyed. Like a spirited horse, a spirited chase, a spirited game of tennis. But nothing was more appealing than a spirited woman. “Oh, I think I quite like you,” he murmured softly.
“The feeling isn’t mutual.”
His lips curved, and he watched as she threw her head back, dark eyes challenging him.
With the sunlight washing her face, he suddenly realized her eyes weren’t brown at all, but blue. A mysterious, dark blue. Like the sky at night. Like the Aegean Sea before a storm. Honey wheat hair and Aegean eyes. She looked remarkably like the pictures he’d seen of her half-English, half-Greek mother, a woman considered to be one of the great beauties of her time.
“Hopefully you’ll grow to tolerate me. It’d make conjugal life…bearable.”
A pulse beat wildly at the base of her throat. But her eyes splintered anger, passion, denial. She was going to fight him, tooth and nail. “I’d sooner let you put a bit in my mouth and saddle on my back.”
“Now that could be tempting.”
Her cheeks darkened to a dusky pink, her gorgeous coloring a result of the Greek-English heritage. Blue eyes, sun-streaked hair, a hint of gold in her complexion. He felt desire, and possession. She was his. She just didn’t know it yet.
Alysia fled to a distant corner of the walled garden, arms crossed over her chest, breasts rising and falling with her quick, shallow breathing.
He followed more slowly, not wanting to push her too hard. At least not yet. Furtively he touched the breast pocket of his coat, feeling the crisp edges of the morning’s newspaper. She wouldn’t like the press clipping. He was the first to admit it was a power play, and underhanded, but Christos wasn’t about to lose this deal.
He’d made a promise to his parents that he’d bring fortune to his beleaguered branch of the family, and every decision he’d made since then had been in the pursuit of that goal. Since he’d made that promise, the family fortunes had grown into a different league. Very different.
She must have felt him approach. “Have you no ethics?” Her low-pitched voice vibrated with emotion. “How can you marry a woman against her will?”
“It wouldn’t be against your will. You have a choice.”
“You disgust me!”
“Then go back inside. Call the nun over. She’s dying to be part of the conversation.”
Alysia glanced over her shoulder, spotted the nun and pressed her lips together. “You’re enjoying this.”
“It’s my wedding day. What’s not to enjoy?”
She took another step away, sinking onto a polished marble bench. He walked around the bench to face her. “Alysia, your father has sworn to leave you here until we exchange vows. Doesn’t that worry you?”
“No. You are not the first man I’ve refused, and dare I say, nor the last. I’ve been here nearly a year, and the sisters have been wonderful. Quite frankly, I’ve begun to think of the convent as home.”
The convent as home? He didn’t believe her, not for a minute. Despite her refined beauty—the high, fine cheekbones, the elegant curve of her brow—her eyes, those indigo-blue eyes, smoldered with secrets.
She did not belong in the convent’s simple brown smock any more than he belonged in priestly robes. And God knew he did not belong in priestly robes.
Christos felt a sudden wave of sympathy for her, but not enough to walk away from the playing table. No, he never walked away from the playing table, not that he played cards. He gambled in other ways. Daring, breathtaking power plays in the Greek shipping-industry which so far had resulted in staggering financial gain. He’d been wildly successful by anyone’s standards.
“Your home, Alysia, will be with me. I’ve picked you. You are part of my plan. And once I put a plan into action, I don’t give up. I never quit.”
“Those admirable traits would be better applied elsewhere.”
“There is no elsewhere. There is no other option. You, our marriage, is the future,” he said softly, as a warm breeze blew through the courtyard, loosening a tendril of hair from her demure bun. She didn’t attempt to smooth it and the golden-brown tendril floated light as a feather.
He liked the play of sunlight across her shoulders and face. The sun turned her hair to gold and copper. Flecks of aquamarine shimmered in her eyes.
“I know who you are, Mr. Pateras. I’m not ignorant of your success.” Her eyebrows arched. “Shall I tell you what I know?”
“Please. I enjoy my success story.”
“A full-blooded Greek, you were born and raised in a middle-class New York suburb. You attended public school, before being accepted to one of the prestigious American Ivy League colleges.”
“Yale,” he supplied.
“Which is quite good,” she agreed. “But why not Harvard? Harvard is supposed to be the best.”
“Harvard is for old money.”
“That’s right. Your father left Oinoussai broke and in disgrace.”
“Not disgraced. Just poor. Hopeful that there would a better life elsewhere.”
“Your father worked in the shipyards.”
“He was a welder,” Christos answered evenly, hiding the depth of his emotions. He was fiercely loyal to his parents, but particularly to his father. His father’s piety, unwavering morals and devotion to family had sustained them during times of great financial hardship. And there had been hardship, tremendous hardship, not to mention ostracism in the close-knit Greek-American community.
Quickly, before she could probe further, he turned the spotlight on her. “And your father, Alysia, inherited his millions. You’ve never lacked for anything. You have no idea what ‘poor’ means.”
“But you aren’t poor anymore, Mr. Pateras. You now own as many ships as Britain’s entire merchant fleet. Despite your humble origins, it shouldn’t be difficult to find a bride a…trifle…more eager to accept your proposal.”