A Shameful Consequence(15)

‘To where?’ the concierge asked, ‘and will you need a connection?’ for he could arrange a helicopter or seaplane to Volos and then a flight to Athens. For a beat of a moment Nico wished he’d rung Charlotte, for he didn’t actually know where he was going. Always his time was accounted for and he did not like the feeling this unexpected day off gave him. He had properties everywhere but they were all investments. His job was so global he preferred hotels. His yacht was moored in Puerto Banus in Spain, which was perhaps becoming his base, for Nico was half considering buying a property there, not as an investment, though, but as a home.

‘Just get me to Athens,’ Nico said and rang off. He would decide later, because, after yesterday’s episode, a day on the ocean did not particularly appeal.

It never entered his head he would see her that morning—surely the facade should mean the happy couple breakfasted in bed, but as the lift doors slid open there she was with Stavros. She looked stunning and groomed, every bit a Lathira wife—her make-up immaculate, no trace of last night’s crying evident, the elevator fresh with expensive fragrance, when Nico would have preferred the scent of her sex.

‘Kalimera.’ Nico greeted them and for the first time in his entire life he felt heat in his neck, in his ears and, as the liftman pressed the button, Nico found out how it felt to blush.

Not that Connie saw it.

Her own face was surely purple, her eyes staring down at her brand-new shoes. Stavros, unaware of the new charge in the air, stood beside her—but there was absolutely no guilt on her part. Her so-called husband had, after all, been with a lover of his own on their wedding night. Instead the burn in her cheeks was solely down to Nico, her body flaming in instinctive response, her cheeks firing at the memory of his mouth, his hands and all he had, last night, taught her to be.

‘Kalimera,’ Stavros said and nudged her, the dutiful wife, who must, he had told her, always perform, always look the part, entertain … And she opened her mouth to extend the greeting, to speak as she should, to act as she should, to greet her lover as a guest, and in her first act of defiance this morning she decided she would not. Connie stood instead, eyes forward, and slowly she blinked. She did not want to open her eyes to how things would be if she played along with the charade. She felt the nudge in her ribs again from Stavros, an irritated prompt which again she ignored.

And Nico knew it.

Though he stood in front of them, Nico was acutely aware of what was going on, could hear Stavros’s angry breathing, could see, in the highly polished doors, him turn to his newly belligerent wife. There was an unseen hint of a smile on Nico’s lips as behind him the sleeping dragon within her awoke.

But as they stepped out of the lift he stood for just a brief moment and watched as Stavros took his wife’s hand and they headed to the restaurant. Now he was not smiling, for she was still, Nico noted, minus her wedding ring, the row in the bedroom spilling outwards, and he was worried for her. Not, Nico told himself, because of closeness they had shared, worried as you would be for anyone. For he had stood up to his family, had turned away from the family business, from the island, had refused the direction to take a suitable wife and deliver the promise of rapid grandchildren—and even for a man as mentally tough as Nico, it had been hard. How much harder for Constantine, for a married woman, for the golden only child of her parents, to turn the mighty tide now?

‘Sir …’ The concierge interrupted his thoughts, abject in his apology, especially for such an esteemed guest, but the hotel was already struggling to accommodate the demands of the wedding guests, and to have Nico Eliades added to the list had spun behind the scenes into chaos. No matter how he had juggled, the poor man had to now tell his esteemed guest that his transport would be another fifteen minutes.

At best.

‘Perhaps you would like breakfast while you wait.’

Nico was about to decline for he never ate breakfast. He operated better hungry, black coffee his only charge till lunchtime, but, yes, he might as well say farewell to his parents.

Not that they seemed particularly pleased to see him. His mother almost jumped out of her skin when he approached the table.

‘Nico!’ Her exclamation was horrified, then rapidly changed to pleasant surprise. ‘I thought you’d left.’

‘Clearly not,’ Nico said.

‘When?’ His father did not even an attempt to greet him, just demanded to know when he would be gone—and Nico had not, from the day he had turned eighteen, given in to his father’s demands, and he didn’t start now.