The Giannakis Bride (20 page)

“I’d love to, but I have a patient I need to get back to, one whose prospects are, sadly, not nearly as favorable as Poppy’s.”

He caught both her hands in his and squeezed them. “I owe you everything, Noelle,” he said earnestly. “How do I ever repay you for all you’ve done?”

“By being happy for a change. Heaven knows, it’s been a long time coming.”

He watched her leave, then turned back into the house, eager to find Brianna. But she was not, as he expected, at their table in the ballroom, nor was she on the dance floor. She sat alone on a hard wooden bench in the grand hall, close by the front doors, her spine poker straight, her face empty of the animation she’d shown earlier, her incredible blue eyes staring sightlessly ahead.

Crossing the floor, he dropped down beside her. “Brianna, what are you doing out here?”

“Waiting for you,” she replied, the chill in her voice enough to send the temperature plummeting.

Nice going,
Giannakis
, he thought ruefully. She knocks herself out looking gorgeous for a fancy ball she never really wanted to attend in the first place, and you leave her to fend for herself among a bunch of strangers. “Look, I’m sorry I abandoned you, sweetheart. It was unavoidable, but I’m here now, and the night’s still young. Would you like to dance?”

“No,” she said flatly. “I would like to leave.”

“Okay…” Baffled, he observed her more closely. He didn’t particularly want to stay, either. He wanted to be alone with her, and celebrate in private news that was better than anything they could have hoped for. But he didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to recognize that at this point, and for reasons he couldn’t begin to fathom, she was in no mood to listen to anything he might say, let alone celebrate with him. “Brianna, what’s happened? Are you not feeling well? Has someone said something to upset you?”

A brittle laugh escaped her, but her eyes, he noticed, were suddenly
sheened
in tears.

“Never mind,” he said hastily. “Talking can wait. Let’s get out of here.”

Ignoring the way she shied away from him as if he had the plague, he slipped his arm around her waist and propelled her outside, and down the wide front steps to the porte-cochere where the parking valets waited. During the few minutes it took for his car to be brought round, he kept hold of her. He might as well have been hugging a marble statue.

He ushered her into the car as if she were made of china, so persuasively concerned, so convincingly tender, that it was all Brianna could do not strike out blindly and rake her nails down his beautiful, deceiving face. Instead she huddled in her seat, as far away from him as she could possibly get. Turning to the window, she stared blindly out, seeing nothing as he drove through the streets of
Kifissia
. Hearing nothing but Noelle’s concise summation of a situation she herself hadn’t begun to guess.

…there were no guarantees…you knew from the outset the best possible candidate is always a sibling…if you and Brianna were to have a baby… And underscoring that elegant English accent,
Dimitrios’s
dark exotic voice and her own rash, impassioned response.

…I have no
profilaktiko
….

…I don’t care…I want to have your baby…. Furtively she wiped at the lone tear trickling down her face. He’d hurt her before, but never like this. She felt emotionally bruised, battered and betrayed. Flayed to the bone by his deception, every loving touch, every passionate encounter, every whispered endearment exposed for the lies they were. It had all been a big sham from start to finish. He’d bamboozled her into believing he loved her, when all he really wanted was to use her.

Except, she realized with another cold sense of shock, he’d never actually used the word love. Never once come right out and said, “I love you.” Rather, he’d told her he wanted her and he needed her. And now she knew why. Knew it had nothing to do with love and everything to do with expedience.

They’d left the lights of the city behind and were headed down the eastern slopes of Mount
Penteli
when he finally spoke, and this time he sounded every bit as hard and callous as she now knew him to be. “Okay, Brianna, I’ve had about enough of the silent treatment. I can’t fix the problem if I don’t know what it is, so how about spelling it out for me?”

Struggling to keep her voice steady, she said, “There is no problem. I have decided I can’t marry you, that’s all.”

“I see. And why is that?” he inquired evenly.

“Because I don’t want a husband who sees me only as a means to an end.”

“What the devil are you talking about?”

Tired of the games, she said, “I followed you tonight, when you went off with Noelle. I heard her tell you I didn’t measure up as a donor for Poppy.”

“Is that what this is all about?” He actually had the gall to laugh. “Sweetheart, it’s not a question of your not measuring up, it’s—”

“A question of how soon you can get me pregnant. Yes, I heard that, too.

“What?” There was no laughter this time, just well-feigned incredulity, which she didn’t buy for a second.

“‘The ideal donor is always a sibling,’” she recited in her best imitation of Noelle’s precise English diction.

“And?”

“And I’m the only woman still alive who can give you a child whose DNA will match Poppy’s. If that’s all you ever wanted from me, why didn’t you just say so in the first place, and spare us both this masquerade?”

By then they’d reached the coast and were just minutes away from the villa. “Let me get this straight,” he said, slowing to let a cat cross the road. “You can’t donate bone marrow to Poppy, but if you have my baby, we can use it in your place, instead?”

“That’s right. I should be wearing your ring through my nose, not on my finger.”

He turned into the drive, parked at the front door and killed the engine, but made no move to get out of the car. Instead he hefted the keys in his palm and stared through the darkened windshield at the moonlit walls of the house. “Whatever happened to the idea of truth and trust between us, Brianna? You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved. Why isn’t that enough for you?”

“Because your idea of love isn’t the same as mine. As for truth and trust, they’re just a couple of five-letter words you throw into the mix whenever you think they might get you what you want.”

“I wanted you,” he said harshly. “I thought we had the ideal recipe for marital bliss. Sexual electricity, desire, passion, yearning—everything we had before, except this time, it was better because we believed in one another. And all the time, the same vital ingredient was missing. You never could quite bring yourself to accept that what we had was real. I’m surprised you’re still here. Usually you don’t bother to stop long enough to say why, before you decide to cut and run.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be gone tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the warning. I’ll try to come up with an explanation for Poppy when she asks about you.”

“I won’t desert Poppy. I love her dearly and I’d do anything in my power to make her well. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some packing to do. I’ll let you know which hotel I’m at, in case you need to reach me.”

She flung open the car door, but before she could escape, he wrenched her back and pinned her to the seat. “Oh, no, you don’t!” he snarled. “This is one time you’ll stay and listen.”

“I don’t want to hear anything you have to say.”

“I don’t care! First, I have a piece of advice you’d do well to heed. The next time you decide to eavesdrop on someone else’s conversation, do yourself a favor and make sure you listen in on everything before you leap to unwarranted conclusions.”

“Thank you so much,” she said acidly. “Anything else you feel compelled to share?”

“Yes,” he replied. “I am not Poppy’s biological father.”

It was her turn to stare in disbelief. “What did you say?”

“I am not Poppy’s biological father, I have no idea who is, and nor do I care. She is my daughter in every way that matters, and I would give my life for her. That, Brianna, is how I define love.”

“But Noelle said—”

“That even if you and I were to have a child solely for the purpose of harvesting his or her stem cells, it wouldn’t necessarily help Poppy and that, of course, is something I’ve known since the day I tested as a possible donor myself, and discovered not only that I wasn’t a match but also that there was no way I could possibly be her biological parent. So you see, my dear, my proposal to you was never contingent on your acting as a brood mare. Oh, yes, and one last thing—I learned tonight that we’ve found an unrelated donor who’s a perfect match for Poppy. That was the other piece of news Noelle wanted to convey. She’d have told both of us yesterday, when she also learned of your unsuitability. But rather than risk a second disappointment, she waited until she received absolute confirmation that the other person, a twenty-three-year-old medical student from Chile, is available. Apparently, he is and will be here on Tuesday.”

He released her then and flung himself back in his seat. “You may leave now. Don’t let me keep you from your packing.”

The house was silent as a tomb. Creeping up the stairs, Brianna let herself into her room and slumped onto the love seat. She wished she could cry. But she had nothing left inside. No tears, no hope and no heart. She and
Dimitrios
were finally over. Done. She’d heard the absolute contempt in his voice. Seen it in his face. Felt it in his touch.

Slowly, she pulled off his ring and placed it on the coffee table. She couldn’t blame Cecily for this latest falling out. This time it was all her own fault. She’d been the one who lacked faith, and if she was as honest with herself as she’d told him he should have been with her, she’d admit she’d been second-guessing herself and him from the day she arrived. Now the only thing left for her to do was leave with dignity.

Or was it? Was anything ever really over as long as a person had life and the will to fight?

You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved, he’d said, not in a moment of passion, but with anger fueling his words. Wasn’t that reason enough not to give up on the best thing that had ever happened to her?

She had no answers, and knew only that if she wanted to find any, she had to put some distance between him and her. As long as his room was just across the hall from hers, it would be too easy to go to him. She knew what the outcome would be if she did: the same as it had always been with them. A matter of body over mind, of the driving hunger of the flesh silencing the saner voice of reason.

And they had made enough mistakes. There were only so many times that a man and a woman could keep trying to mend what was broken between them before all they had left were the tattered remains of what had once been beautiful but was now ruined past recognition.

Kicking off her satin dancing shoes, she stripped away her pretty gown and changed into a light cotton shift and sandals.

Opening her door, she saw a strip of light showing under his. Otherwise, the house lay in darkness. Quietly she stole along the upper landing, down the stairs and out into the sweet night air of early June. When she reached the gates, she turned left, away from
Rafina
, which lay to the north, and toward the village a few kilometers in the opposite direction.

Dimitrios
ripped off his bow tie and yanked the top two studs of his dress shirt undone. Still he felt choked—on anger, on regret, on pride. Why couldn’t she simply have come to him and asked him to explain, instead of automatically believing the worst of him? He thought they’d moved beyond that. Instead it seemed nothing he did would ever really redeem him in her eyes. At the first hint of trouble, he became again the man she believed had betrayed her before.

Well, to hell with her! He was tired of proving himself worthy of her love. Let her run back to her precious career. He’d lived without her once before; he could do so again. He had his daughter, his loyal household staff, perhaps his mother. And if he needed a willing body once in a while, there were women enough who’d be glad to warm his bed.

But would they be enough to make him forget her, or would it always be her face he saw in his mind’s eye, her body he thought of as he lost himself in some stranger whose name he’d have forgotten by morning? How long before the day came that he didn’t think of her, or miss her with an ache that never went away?

Never. She was in his blood, a fatal, magnificent disease. And the cure he’d spend the rest of his life seeking, if he let her slip through his fingers a second time.

He couldn’t let it happen. If he had to get down on his knees and plead with her to stay, he’d do it, and pride be damned.

Stepping out of his room, he saw a strip of light showing under her door. No time like the present, he decided. Tomorrow might be too late. Crossing the hall, he tapped gently, and when he received no reply, he turned the knob and went in.

He knew then why she hadn’t answered. The room was empty.

 
Although it was well after midnight, the village teemed with life. Music and light spilled from open windows into the warm Mediterranean night. Children played in the street, dogs barked, babies cried. Men and women, husbands and wives, laughed and loved and scolded, daring to wring every last drop of flavor from life because it was worth it and in the end, the good balanced out the bad.