Wedding Night with a Stranger. Anna Cleary

      Dismay speared through Sebastian. Such generosity was rare indeed. But there’d been strings attached, all right. Strings of honour. With grim comprehension he recognised the situation. The Nikostos were now under an obligation to the Giorgiases. For some reason Peri Giorgias required a favour, and he’d chosen to collect from the son of his debtor.

      A son for a father. A favour for a favour.

      He could almost hear the clang as the trap snapped shut around him. Chained to a stranger in wedlock.

      In an attempt to break free from the vice sinking its teeth into his gut, he got up and paced the room. Another marriage was the last thing he’d ever intended. How could he dishonour Esther’s memory with some spoiled tycoon’s poppet?

      ‘There were other brothers too. Three. At least three.’ Yiayia’s gentle voice filtered through his reflections. ‘I remember the youngest, but the middle boys…’ The old lady sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. After a moment she said, ‘I remember young Andreas. He didn’t care for the family business. I think he was an artist. He came out here, and married an Australian girl. Oh, that was a terrible tragedy. Poor Andreas and his wife.’

      In spite of his resistance to knowing anything about the Giorgias woman’s history, Sebastian’s attention was arrested, and he turned to watch his grandmother’s face. ‘What happened?’

      ‘A boat accident. Night-time on the harbour. You may not remember. Your parents, your grandfather and me, we all went to the funeral, but you’d have still been a boy. Only imagine a Greek being killed in a boating accident! They said it was a collision. Silly young people out skylarking. Andreas and his wife didn’t stand a chance.’

      He frowned, unwilling to feel sympathy. Unwilling to feel. ‘They left children?’

      His grandmother’s face lit up. ‘That’s right, there was a child. A girl, I think. I’m nearly sure the poor little thing was taken back to Greece with one of the brothers.’

      Sebastian grimaced and resumed his chair. After a smouldering moment he made the curt acknowledgement, ‘Pericles.’

      ‘Ah.’

      A pregnant silence fell.

      Sebastian wondered if by admitting he knew that one fact, he’d given away something crucial. Sooner or later, if he went through with this charade, they would all have to know. What would they think of their brilliant son then, snagged like a greenhorn in a duty marriage? Forced up the aisle with a woman he hated?

      A flash of the Giorgias woman’s drawn, anxious face at the last stirred a sudden unaccountable turmoil in his chest and he had to rescind the thought. No, he didn’t hate her, exactly. He just felt—angry. What man wouldn’t? To have his bride, his life, decided by someone else.

      In the first flush of his outrage Sebastian had blamed—he allowed himself to use her name—Ariadne. He’d imagined her as a spoiled little despot, winding her doting uncle around her little finger. How had she come to choose him? Had he been listed in some cheap catalogue of eligible males?

      Now, after hearing Yiayia’s words he began to see it was almost certainly instigated by Pericles himself.

      His grandmother studied his face, her shrewd black eyes revealing nothing of her thoughts. After a long moment, she said, ‘You have met her? Andreas’s daughter?’

      Sebastian hesitated, then shrugged and said without expression, ‘I have had that pleasure.’

      The wise old eyes scanned his a moment longer, then closed, as if in meditation. ‘I don’t think Pericles and Eleni were blessed.’

      Sebastian knew what she meant. Other people might be blessed with brains, beauty, talent, health or wealth, but to Yiayia children were the most worthwhile of life’s gifts, so blessings referred only to them.

      ‘They ’d have wanted to take on the little one,’ she continued. ‘I expect they’d have been overjoyed. Eleni had nothing much else to fill her heart. That Pericles liked the business. He was the right one to take over the shipping because he had an eye for money. Clever, but not always very smart. Andreas, now…A thoughtful boy, I think. Sensitive.’ She shook her head and clasped her lined hands in her lap. ‘Oh, that was a terrible shame. The young shouldn’t have to die.’

      Was she thinking of Esther now? ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘They shouldn’t.’

      Again, her wrinkled lids drifted shut. She remained silent for so long Sebastian thought she must have nodded off to sleep. He was about to get up and cover her with one of her shawls when her eyes opened, as clear and focused as ever.

      ‘Is she beautiful?’

      Sebastian’s gut tightened. Resistance hardened in him to the notion of Ariadne Giorgias’s beauty. He opened his mouth to growl something, but nothing would come. Anyway, the less said the better. Regardless of how he felt, whatever he said now could come back to haunt him.

      ‘Do women have to be beautiful, Yiayia?’ he hedged. ‘Wasn’t there an entire generation of women who rebelled against that notion?’

      The old lady made an amused grimace. ‘They usually are, though, aren’t they, glikia-mou? To the men who love them. A man needs something lovely to rest his eyes on.’

      Again, he guessed she was thinking of Esther. And it was true he’d loved her as much as it was possible for a man to love a woman. People in his family rarely made reference to her now, not wanting to remind him of the bad times, all the losing battles with hope after each bout of surgery, the radiation treatment, the nightmare of chemo.

      Even after three years they were still exquisitely careful of his feelings, even Yiayia, tiptoeing around him on the subject, as if his marriage were a sacred area too painful for human footsteps.

      Sometimes he wished they could forget about all that and remember his wife as the person she’d been. He still liked to think of those easy-going, happy days, before he and Esther were married, before he’d started Celestrial.

      A stab of the old remorse speared through him. If only he’d spared her more of his time. In those early days of the company…

      With an effort he thrust aside the useless self-recrimination, thoughts that still had the power to gut him. Too late for regrets, now he’d lost her.

      No one would ever replace her in his heart, but often he was conscious of a hollowness that his work, exciting and challenging as it was, didn’t fill. He hardly spent any time at home now, even sleeping on the settee in his office at times. He could imagine his parents’ amazement if he ended up marrying this Greek woman, after they’d long since given up hope and become inured to the prospect of his ongoing singularity.

      The reality was, he might as well admit it, one way or another a man still needed a woman. Somehow, against his will, against all that he held decent, meeting Ariadne Giorgias in the flesh had roused that sleeping dragon in him.

      Though she wasn’t his choice, she was no less lovely than any of the women he knew. If he’d met her at some other point in time, he might even have felt attracted. But…

      Resistance clenched inside him like a fist. He wasn’t the man to be coerced.

      He became aware of Yiayia’s thoughtful scrutiny. What was it she’d asked? Beautiful. Was she?

      ‘She probably is,’ he conceded drily. ‘To anyone who cares for her type.’

      ‘What type is that?’ Yiayia enquired.

      Defensive, scared, fragile. Pretty. Sexy.