The Greek's Unknown Bride

Before long the car turned in towards a massive pair of wrought-iron gates. They opened mechanically and a man in little security hut outside waved them in after a few words with the driver.

Sasha stared out the window in awe as lush grounds opened up around them. The driveway led up to a massive courtyard and a two-storey villa-style house with steps leading up to the front door where a woman in a uniform was waiting.

Apollo got out when the car had stopped at the bottom of the steps and before Sasha could figure out where the handle was, the door was being opened and she saw his large hand extending towards her.

She had no choice but to put her hand in his and her skin prickled with a kind of foreboding, as if her body knew it would react in a certain way and she had no idea what to expect.

Yes, you do.

Her hand touched his and an electric jolt went right through her. Reflexively her fingers curled around his. Face flaming at her reaction, she let him help her from the car and as soon as she could, she snatched her hand back.

Her reaction to him on top of the fog in her brain was too much. She resolved not to touch him again if she could help it and then that little voice reminded her that they were married.

She stopped at the bottom of the steps at the thought that they must be sharing a room. A bed. Her heart seemed to triple its rate. Apollo was almost at the top of the steps. He turned around and she saw a look of something almost like impatience cross his face.

‘Sasha?’

She thought furiously as she climbed the steps, taking care in the impractical shoes. Maybe she could suggest they sleep separately until her memory returned? Surely he wouldn’t expect her to share his bed when she felt as if she hardly knew him? No matter what her body might be telling her.

At the top of the steps was the older woman in the uniform. She was a stranger to Sasha. And she didn’t look welcoming. Dark hair pulled back and a matronly bosom. She seemed to be eyeing Sasha warily, as if waiting for her to do something unexpected.

Sasha stepped forward and held out a hand. ‘Hello.’ The woman flinched minutely and then she glanced at Apollo and seemed to get some kind of sign because she looked back at Sasha and took her hand, saying in heavily accented Greek, ‘Welcome home, Kyria Vasilis.’

Sasha felt a light touch on her back that distracted her from the woman’s odd reaction. ‘You don’t remember Rhea?’

She shook her head, ‘I’m so sorry, but no.’

The women let her hand go, eyes widening. Apollo said, ‘I’ll show my wife around the villa. We’ll eat something light in a couple of hours, Rhea. On the smaller terrace.’

The woman nodded and disappeared into the villa. Sasha looked into the massive circular reception area. She felt absolutely sure, at that moment, that she’d never seen these marble floors or set foot in this place before.

Which was wrong. She’d been living here. She obviously couldn’t trust her own instincts.

She stepped over the threshold warily, and followed Apollo as he led her into the first of a dizzying array of rooms leading off the circular hall. There was a formal reception room, informal reception room. Formal dining room, informal dining room.

The rooms were all furnished with sumptuous but elegant furniture. Muted colours in varying but complementary shades in each room. It was modern but felt classic. Huge canvases adorned the walls and antiques nestled among more modern artefacts.

Each room had huge French doors that led out to a terrace that ran the length of the house, overlooking the impressive garden. Even more impressive was the view of Athens in the distance.

Sasha walked out of the formal dining room onto the terrace. They were far above the teeming ancient city, the air heavy with the scent of the flowers that climbed the wall of the terrace in colourful profusion. She tried desperately to conjure up a memory of having looked at this view from here before, but her mind stayed blank. Apollo came and stood beside her on the terrace and her skin prickled. Sasha asked, ‘Is this an old house?’

‘No, I built it on this site.’

Sasha looked at him. ‘You built it?’

His jaw tightened. ‘Not me personally. My construction company.’

Sasha turned to face him. ‘So...you own a construction company?’

He looked at her and nodded. ‘Vasilis Construction.’

Sasha frowned. ‘Is it a family business—do you have family?’

An expression flashed across his face so fast she couldn’t decipher it but it had looked for a second like pain. ‘My family are dead. A long time ago. My father was in construction but he worked for someone else so, no, it’s not a family business.’

‘I’m sorry to hear your family are gone.’ Both their families were dead. ‘What happened?’

For a long moment she thought he wouldn’t answer and then he said, ‘A series of unfortunate events.’

He stepped back. ‘Let me show you the rest of the villa.’

Sasha pushed aside her curiosity about ‘a series of unfortunate events’ and followed the broad shoulders of her husband as he led her back into the hall and up a majestic flight of stairs. Villa seemed like an ineffectual word for what was, clearly, a luxurious mansion.

She wondered what it must have been like to come here with her new husband for the first time. A small voice pointed out that she was getting to relive that experience right now. Except, she wondered, had he been any warmer the first time round?

The villa retained that modern but classic feel throughout. Little touches of period features to give it a sense of timelessness.

In the basement there was a state-of-the-art gym and media room, which could convert into a home cinema. On the same level there was a lap pool and steam and sauna room. Not to mention the extra rooms for massage and treatments that opened out onto a lower-level garden with a couple of sun loungers and a hammock hung between two trees.

Apollo waved a hand towards the gardens, ‘There’s also an outdoor pool and changing area.’

He showed her his study on the first floor. A very masculine room with walls lined with shelves and books. Across the hall he opened another door and said, ‘This is your office.’

She couldn’t contain her surprise. ‘I had an office?’

He put out a hand and she went in, not sure why she suddenly felt reluctant. The room was pretty but overdone. A plush white carpet and a white desk were the simplest things in the room. There was an expensive-looking computer on the desk.

The walls were covered with flowery chintzy wallpaper and there were framed prints of the covers of glossy magazines on the wall. Lots of shelves that were mainly empty. A handful of books.

A pink velvet chair and matching footstool. It looked as if it hadn’t been touched.

‘What did I use this for?’

Apollo was leaning against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest, a look of almost disdain on his face. ‘You said you wanted to set up a PR business.’

Sasha looked at him. ‘Is that what I did? PR?’

He shrugged. ‘When we met you were serving drinks at a reception. I don’t think your knowledge of PR extended beyond the service end of the industry.’

There was a tone to his voice that Sasha chose to try and figure out later. She followed him up to the second level where the bedrooms were situated. He led her past several guest rooms to the end of the corridor, opening a door. ‘This is your room.’

She went in and stopped, turning around. ‘My room?’

‘Your room.’

Apollo filled the doorway easily. Sasha’s mouth felt dry. She was aware of her feet hurting from the high sandals. And a dull ache at the front of her head.

‘We weren’t sharing a room?’

Slowly he shook his head. ‘No.’

Sasha desperately wanted to know why and he looked as if he expected her to ask that question but for reasons she couldn’t understand she didn’t want to know. Just yet.

Because this would also, surely, explain his cool and aloof manner. Why the housekeeper had looked at her so warily.

She had a very tenuous grip on reality as it was, and she didn’t know if she was prepared to hear more revelations about herself.

So she said nothing and walked into the room. It was luxurious, as she’d come to expect in a very short space of time. Carpet so plush her heels sank right into it. Instinctively, she slipped off the sandals, relishing the relief and the sensation of the soft covering underfoot.

She was aware of the massive bed dressed in cool and pristine-looking linens to her left-hand side but ignored it, not liking the way she was so aware of it.

She carried the sandals in her hand over to where French doors opened out onto a balcony that was big enough to hold a sun lounger and table and chairs. From here she could see that the villa had another wing, one storey high, with a smaller terrace covered over with trellis. The outdoor pool was just beyond this area, surrounded by bougainvillea. There were loungers and a changing area.

The grounds sloped away from here, down the hill, leaving the vista open to Athens and the sea beyond.

The full extent of this sheer luxury sank in. It was overwhelming.

She turned back into the room, blinded for a moment by the sun. When her eyes adjusted again she realised that Apollo was a lot closer than she’d expected.

Immediately her pulse quickened and her skin seemed to get tight and hot all over. The bed loomed large behind him. He looked at her with a strange expression, as if fixated, for a moment. She noticed that he had undone his tie and it hung loose now. His top button was open, revealing the strong column of his throat.

He blinked, and the moment was gone. He stepped back and went to a door in the wall, opening it. ‘This is your walk-in closet and the bathroom.’

Sasha followed him, feeling light-headed and a little jittery. But those disturbing sensations and the way he’d just looked at her fled her mind when the space revealed itself and she looked upon more clothes than she could have ever possibly seen in her life. And shoes. And jewellery, in a special glass cabinet.

The clothes—dresses, skirts, trousers, shirts, jeans, leisure-wear—were stacked, hanging and folded in a room the size of a small boutique. There was every colour of the rainbow.

Without even realising she’d moved, Sasha found herself reaching out and touching a glittering lamé dress in dark blue. It slid between her fingers. It looked hardly capable of staying on a body.

She dropped it and looked around, half-horrified as much as fascinated. ‘These are all...mine?’

Apollo was still trying to get his body back under control. For a moment when Sasha had turned from the balcony back into the bedroom, she’d been backlit by the sun, turning her hair into a blazing strawberry-blonde halo around her head.

Her flimsy silk top had clung lovingly to her breasts, the lace of her bra just visible under the delicate material. And he’d had an almost uncontrollable urge to stride forward and take her by the arms and demand to know what she was playing at with this wide-eyed act of innocence. She’d played that card before.

But that urge had fled, to be replaced by a far more dangerous one when she’d looked at him as if he was a wolf about to gobble her up. Instead, all he’d wanted to do was crush that temptingly lush mouth under his and punish her for reawakening this desire, which had lain mercifully dormant for the past three months, in spite of her best efforts to seduce him.

But not any more. It was awake and ravenous. And she was playing him with this little game. After all, feigning amnesia would be child’s play to a woman who had feigned a lot worse.

He’d had enough of the charade. His anger burned bright and hot and he told himself it was that, and not desire that he was feeling.

He said in a low voice that barely contained his anger, ‘You know damn well these are all your clothes because you spent many vacuous hours shopping for them with my credit card. You might have fooled the doctors and nurses at the hospital but there’s no one here but you and me now, so who are you trying to fool with this act, Sasha? What the hell are you up to?’

CHAPTER TWO

‘WHAT THE HELL are you up to?’

Sasha looked at Apollo and it took a few seconds for his words to sink in, they were so unexpected. But then there was almost a strange sense of relief to have the tension bubble over into words so that she could find out why he’d been acting so coolly with her.

She felt his anger but it didn’t scare her. It perplexed her.

‘What are you talking about?’

He waved a hand, bristling all over. ‘This...farce. Pretending to have lost your memory.’

Sasha felt confused. ‘But I’m not. Don’t you think I want to know who I am, or what’s going on?’

She shook her head. ‘Why would I do such a thing?’ But just then a pain lanced through the building dull ache in her head. She winced and put a hand to her forehead, feeling light-headed all of a sudden.

Apollo’s voice was sharp. ‘What is it?’

Sasha was about to shake her head again but she stopped for fear of making it worse. ‘It’s just a headache, the doctor said that they might be frequent for a few days. If I do too much.’

The recent outburst hung between them, the atmosphere charged, but after a few moments Apollo stepped back and said tightly, ‘You should rest for a bit. I can have Rhea bring some food up in a couple of hours.’

Sasha remembered the way the woman had flinched earlier. ‘No, I’ll come down. I’m sure I’ll be feeling better.’

Apollo walked out of the closet space, leaving Sasha with the throbbing pain in her head and feeling utterly bewildered. He thought she was lying?

She heard a noise in the main bedroom and went back out to see a young girl she hadn’t met placing her hospital bag on the bed. The girl looked at her but didn’t smile. She backed away, staring at Sasha as if she might jump at her, and said in halting English, ‘Your bag, Kyria Vasilis.’

She left and Sasha stared after her for a long moment. After Apollo’s outburst just now, it was patently evident that their marriage was not a harmonious one, and that people didn’t seem to like her very much.

Her head throbbed even more, and Sasha went over to the bag that had just been delivered and pulled out the box of painkillers she’d been prescribed. She saw a tray on a table with water and glasses, and took two of the tablets.

She explored further, into the bathroom, which was almost as big as the bedroom. A massive bath and walk-in shower. Two sinks. Cream tiles and gold fittings that looked classy, not tacky.

She caught sight of her reflection in the mirror and sucked in a breath. She was deathly pale. No wonder Apollo had asked if she was okay. She looked a wreck. Shadows under her eyes. The scratch on her cheek. The yellowing of the bruise on her forehead where she’d bumped her head.

She felt disconnected from herself, which she supposed was only to be expected. But she felt as though didn’t belong here, in this hushed rarefied place. Where people looked at her as if she’d done something to them. Where her husband accused her of lying.

Why would he think she’d do such a thing?

She pushed that to one side for the moment, it was too much to absorb and think about.

‘Sasha...’ She said the word out loud. It still didn’t feel right. ‘Hello, my name is Sasha Vasilis.’ Nothing but a faint echo.

She didn’t need to have bruises and scrapes to know that she was very far out of this man’s league. But a memory flashed into her head at that moment of feeling effervescent. Of him, smiling at her indulgently.

She’d been so happy.

If anything, that memory only made her feel more disorientated. She spied the bath behind her and suddenly wanted to wash away this confusing chain of events. If such a thing was possible.

She ran the bath and stripped off, stepping into the luxuriously scented silky water a few minutes later. It soothed her bruised and injured body, but it couldn’t soothe the turmoil in her belly or clear the pervasive fog in her head.

Apollo stood looking at the woman on the bed. She was in a towelling robe that dwarfed her body, her hair spread around her like a rose-gold halo. One arm was on her chest, the other flung above her head.

One slim pale leg was visible through the gap in the robe and Apollo could see the smattering of freckles across her knee. And it made his blood run hot.

Damn her.

Damn her to hell and back.

He’d met her four months ago and he hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since then. First of all because he’d been unable to get her out of his head and then because she had shown him who she really was. A manipulative, conniving, mercenary—

She moved on the bed and made a small sound.

Those pale eyelids flickered open and he was looking down into two bright pools of blue. So blue that the first time he’d seen her huge eyes he’d been instantly reminded of the skies of his childhood, before things had grown much darker.

She blinked and Apollo came out of his trance, suddenly feeling exposed. He took a step back. ‘I knocked on the door but there was no answer.’

Sasha sat up. He caught a scent of something like crushed roses. And clean skin. He gritted his jaw before saying, ‘Dinner is ready. I can have the food delivered to your room.’

She shook her head and that bright hair slipped over one shoulder. He was rewarded with a memory of wrapping it around his hand as he’d tugged her head back so that he could press kisses down along the column of her throat, and then lower to the pouting provocation of her tight pink nipples.

‘No, it’s fine. I’ll come down. My headache is much better.’

Sasha was still somewhere between waking and sleeping. She hadn’t expected to conk out like that when she’d lain down for a short nap after her bath, but now she could see the dusky sky outside. It had also taken a minute to realise she wasn’t dreaming when she’d opened her eyes to see Apollo standing by the bed. It had been the fierce expression on his face that had woken her properly.

It reminded her of his angry words. ‘What the hell are you up to?’

He’d changed into dark trousers and a dark shirt, open at the neck. Sleeves rolled up as if he’d been working at his desk. In this position, looking up at him, it felt intimate. An echo of a previous moment teased at her memory, as if she’d sat in this very position looking up at him like this, but in a very different situation.

‘I’ll just change and come down,’ she said quickly.

Apollo took another step back and Sasha could breathe a little easier. He said, ‘Very well. I’ll send Kara to show you down in a few minutes.’

Sasha had the distinct impression that he would have preferred it if she’d said she’d eat alone in her room and in a way it would have been easier for her too. But she also had a strong instinct to try and do her utmost to regain her memory and if that meant interacting with her antagonistic husband then so be it.

‘Just through here, Kyria Vasilis.’

Sasha smiled at the same young woman who had brought up her bag earlier. Kara. The girl didn’t smile back.

After Apollo had left, Sasha had washed her face and gone into the walk-in closet to find some clothes. She’d finally pulled out the plainest and most modest clothes she could find. A pair of slim-fitting Capri pants and a cropped sleeveless shirt. The shirt was white but the trousers were yellow. Apparently she didn’t really do muted colours.

And, thankfully, she’d found some flattish shoes. Wedge espadrilles. Unworn, still in the box.

She walked through a less formal lounge on the ground floor that she hadn’t seen earlier and through open French doors to another smaller terrace. The one she’d seen from her balcony earlier, covered by a trellis and surrounded by a profusion of flowers. The view here was of the gently sloping grounds down to the outdoor pool.

The scent of the flowers permeated the air when she stepped outside. The air was warm and still. Peaceful. It soothed her fraying edges and foggy mind a little. Apollo looked up from where he’d been staring broodily into the distance, long fingers around the stem of a glass of wine.

He stood up immediately and something about that small automatic gesture gave her a tiny spurt of reassurance. He pulled out a chair and she sat down, his scent easily eclipsing the sweeter scent of the flowers to infuse the air with something far more potent.

She felt the tension between them. Not surprising after his words earlier but there was also another kind of tension, deep in the core of her body. A hungry kind of tension, as if she knew what it felt like to have that tension released.

He sat down opposite her and picked up a bottle of Greek white wine. ‘Would you like a glass?’

Sasha wasn’t sure. Did she like wine? Might it help take the edge off the unbearable tension she was feeling? She nodded. ‘Just a little, please.’

When he’d poured the wine, she lifted her glass and took a sip, finding it light and sharp. She did like it. The housekeeper Rhea appeared then with appetiser plates of dips and flatbreads. Apollo must have noticed her looking at the food because he pushed a bowl towards her. ‘This is tzatziki with mint, and the other one is hummus.’

She dipped some bread in each, savouring the tart taste of the tzatziki and the creamier hummus.

Apollo seemed to have directed his brooding stare onto her and to try and deflect his attention she said, ‘Your home is lovely.’ It didn’t feel like her home, even if she had been living here for a few months. ‘You must be very successful.’

Apollo took a sip of wine. She thought she saw a quirk of his mouth but it was gone when he lowered his glass. ‘You could say that.’

She had the feeling he was laughing at her. Before she could respond, Rhea appeared again to clear the starters and then Kara brought the main courses. Chicken breasts with salad and baby potatoes. Sasha blushed when her stomach rumbled loudly. She took a bite and almost groaned at the lemon-zesty flavour of the chicken. She felt as if it had been an age since she’d eaten anything so flavoursome.

When her plate was clean she looked up to find Apollo putting down his own fork and knife and staring at her.

‘What?’ She wiped her mouth with her napkin, suddenly aware that she’d fallen on the food like a starving person.

‘Apparently you’ve discovered an appetite,’ was Apollo’s dry response.

Rhea appeared again and gathered up the plates. Sasha said automatically, ‘That was lovely, thank you.’

Rhea stopped and looked at her as if she had two heads before just nodding abruptly and leaving. Not wanting to ask but feeling as if she had no choice, Sasha said, ‘What do you mean about the food, and why does she look at me like that? And Kara too...as if they’re scared of me.’

‘Because they probably are. You didn’t exactly treat them with much respect. And before, you treated any food you were served as if it was an enemy to be feared.’

Sasha could feel the onset of that faint throbbing, signalling a headache again as she absorbed his answer. ‘You really don’t believe that I have amnesia?’

Apollo was expressionless. ‘Let’s just say that your past behaviour wouldn’t give me confidence in your ability to tell the truth.’