The Marriage Betrayal (16 page)

The combined accumulation of nerves and the hormonal commotion of early pregnancy made Tally feel a little dizzy on the church steps where cameras were clicking and film whirring with the bride and groom the photographic centre of attention. As she swayed Sander closed a steadying arm round her.

‘Are you feeling all right?’

‘Just a tiny bit dizzy,’ Tally admitted grudgingly, keen for her condition not to influence their special day in any negative way and glancing anxiously up at him as if she was ready to apologise for her uncharacteristic frailty.

Her bridegroom’s lean, devastatingly handsome features tightened, his stunning dark eyes cooling, his stubborn mouth compressing, and in that single assessing glance Tally experienced a darkly unwelcome moment of insight. Sander, she recognised in dismay, definitely didn’t want to be reminded that she was pregnant, or for anyone beyond the family circle to know. Maybe it was just impatience, she thought frantically, desperate to come up with a more acceptable explanation. He was young, fit and active, unaccustomed to bodily weakness. In addition, it was weeks since they had made love and he had a powerful libido. It was unlikely that he knew much about pregnancy and the hormonal and physical changes it imposed on a woman. Perhaps he was dreading the idea that his bride might turn into an ailing and untouchable pregnant mother-to-be.

‘You really will have to introduce me to your parents,’
she muttered ruefully as he swung into the limo beside her. ‘Do they know I’m pregnant?’

‘Of course.’

Tally tried not to feel self-conscious about the fact for, in a couple of months, people would only have to look at her to appreciate that there was a baby on the way. ‘It’s very awkward that I still haven’t met them.’

‘Between your exams and my schedule there wasn’t an opportunity.’ Sander watched the celebratory flock of doves take flight without wincing in disbelief and he was proud of himself for that tolerant restraint. ‘But we’ll both be much more accessible over the next few months. We’ll be living in Athens for a while at least.’

Since he had not mentioned that salient fact before, Tally tensed. ‘Are you taking over at Volakis Shipping?’

Sander nodded gravely. ‘Can’t avoid it any longer and I’m not sure I even want to any more. It is my family’s heritage. But if my brother, Titos, hadn’t died, the situation would never have arisen.’

Tally had noticed that he never mentioned his late brother. ‘What was Titos like?’

‘A very decent guy, clever, but he had no business brain. He and I could never have worked successfully together. He was the centre of my parents’ world though.’

‘They’ve still got you,’ she pointed out gently.

Sander loosed a rather edged laugh. ‘Titos fitted the bill, I never did. His death devastated them and my survival only reminds them of what they have lost.’

Tally frowned and hoped he was wrong on that score. The concept chilled her, much like the icy appraisal she had received from his parents as she walked down the aisle to marry their son. How could they not appreciate
their strong and phenomenally successful younger son? Full of partisan sympathies on his behalf, she wanted to hug Sander and resisted the urge, knowing he would scorn her commiseration.

A few minutes later, the all-important introductions were performed in an ante-room at the hotel where the reception was being held. Petros Volakis and his tall elegant wife, Eirene, made no attempt to welcome Tally into the family circle. The frosty atmosphere could’ve been cut with the proverbial knife but Sander seemed impervious to it and fell into conversation with his father several feet away. Tally switched to Greek and said, ‘I speak some Greek,’ to Eirene Volakis.

‘I dare say your mother taught you everything she knows,’ Eirene pronounced with scorn in the same language, ‘starting with the most important lesson: how to catch a rich husband with a baby. While that ploy failed her, it hasn’t failed you.’

Shaken by that contemptuous response, which emphasised the unlovely fact that her in-laws knew all too many mortifying facts about her background, Tally reeled as if she had had her face slapped in public. She didn’t have a bitchy bone in her body and could think of nothing to say in return, other than a rather limp, ‘My mother never learned any Greek.’

As Tally moved hurriedly away Crystal grabbed her daughter’s arm and whispered, ‘You could freeze ice on that old trout’s face! What did she say to you?’

‘I think we can safely assume that I wasn’t on her wish list as a daughter-in-law.’

‘Don’t let it upset you,’ Crystal urged, although her own colour was high and it was evident she too was embarrassed by the chilly reception she had received.

Sander saw Tally’s white, drawn face as she moved
away from his mother. She was twisting her hands together in an uneasy movement that he had long since identified as indicative of Tally in distress mode and he immediately suspected the cause. The spasm of dark fury that ripped through him took him by surprise because he had strong reservations of his own when it came to his bride. His parents might be curling their lips in superiority at the over-the-top wedding in which bling rather than good taste ruled, but an affront to his wife was still an affront and unacceptable to Sander.

‘Mum got totally carried away,’ Tally told her bridegroom ruefully as she scanned the reception room, which was dominated by towering flower arrangements embellished with feathers, beading and reflective crystals, while twinkling lights winked on and off everywhere. It looked a little like a child’s version of fairy land. ‘I should’ve restrained her but she was enjoying it all so much I didn’t have the heart.’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Sander pronounced valiantly, questioning his ability to appreciate her innate kindness and then balance that character trait with his belief that she had deliberately concealed her father’s identity before pulling it out like a big gun to get him to the altar. Was she in love with him? he wondered for the first time. Was that why she had fallen pregnant? He might have chosen not to use protection but only after
she
had assured him that it would be safe. If she had trapped him out of love, was he supposed to forgive her? He did not feel forgiving, he felt like a wild animal suddenly thrown into a cage. All of a sudden, the freedom he cherished had vanished. Marriage was supposed to make him faithful and monogamous even
though, to date, he had never felt the desire to be either.

The reception wore on and there was little if any
mingling between the guests on the bride’s side and the groom’s. Without unbending in the slightest, Sander’s parents left at the earliest possible moment. Tally relaxed a little and, drifting round the dance floor in Sander’s strong arms, even contrived to feel dreamily happy. He held her close to his lean powerful body and her blood stirred at his proximity and the aphrodisiac scent of his skin.

Desire was slivering along her nerve endings in a smoulderingly slow attack, when little cramping pains low in her pelvis made her tense for a different reason entirely. Without saying anything she went upstairs to the suite set aside for the bride and groom to change and there she discovered with a sinking heart that she was bleeding. In consternation she wondered if she was losing her baby and when her mother came to check on her Crystal wasted no time in using her phone to call Sander. He sought counsel from his cousin who was a doctor.

‘You need medical attention,’ Sander pronounced.

‘But this is our wedding night!’ Tally protested in dismay.

‘These things happen,’ Sander countered, keen to keep her calm the way his cousin had advised.

An hour and a half later, Tally was tucked into a bed in a private clinic that the doctor had recommended and the wedding day was definitely over. While Crystal had stayed on at the hotel to act as hostess, the bride had not got to throw her bouquet, stay up late at the evening party or even say goodbye to their guests. From below lowered lashes her attention was on Sander, sunk in a chair across the room, his jacket discarded and his sleeves pushed back, his stubborn jaw line now darkly shadowed by stubble. Slightly dishevelled though he
was, he managed to look even more gorgeous than usual and her heart went bumpety-bumpety-bump inside her chest, leaving her breathless.

‘I’m really sorry about this,’ Tally whispered.

In an abrupt movement, Sander sprang upright, instantly dominating the room with his height, breadth and restlessness. He raked impatient brown fingers through his tousled black hair. ‘Don’t be silly—this isn’t your fault.’

Tears burned the backs of her eyes in a hot surge and she blinked rapidly and hurriedly looked away, aware that the last thing he needed was an emotional scene. ‘There’s no point in you staying here with me. Go back to the hotel and see your friends.’

‘It’s two in the morning.’ Sander pointed out the lateness of the hour gently, aware that she had lost track of time. ‘I can’t leave you here alone.’

‘Why not? I’m ready to go to sleep.’

Sander shifted a shoulder in silence, expressing a concern he did not want to frame in words, his lean strong face bleak and hollow with tension. The consultant had made it clear to him that nothing more could be done to prevent her from losing the baby. If it was going to happen, it was going to happen. There was no magic cure to be applied. He did not know how he felt about the ongoing risk of a miscarriage; he just didn’t want to think about it. He was more worried about Tally. He just wanted her back to her normal effervescent self; the pale, tear-stained, apologetic woman in the bed felt like a stranger.

‘The staff will contact you if anything happens,’ Tally muttered. ‘Please go—it would make me feel better.’

In the end Sander departed, telling her that he would be back first thing in the morning. Only when Tally
studied his empty chair did she let the tears flow freely. This was certainly not how she had dreamt of embarking on their shiny new marriage. She pushed her damp cheek into the pillow and tried to sleep, while trying to tell her baby to hang on in there as if her sincere good wishes could fix whatever problem there might be.

Forty-eight hours later and still pregnant, the spotting she’d been suffering having stopped, Tally left the hospital and travelled straight to the airport with her baggage to fly to Athens. Sander was already on board the private jet and spent most of the flight preoccupied with work before finally admitting that the family shipping company needed major reorganisation and that he had to hit the ground running if he was to impress his father with his commitment.

Sander owned a city apartment that was clearly designed to suit a young single male, for the kitchen was minuscule, the lounge furnished with more technology than Tally had ever seen outside a shop and the bed was huge. Recognising that his bride would be at a loose end while he was at the office, Sander suggested somewhat vaguely that she might want to visit his mother, who would introduce her to people. Tally contrived not to cringe at that piece of useless advice and bought a cookery book instead, determined to make meals that Sander would recognise.

Unfortunately her culinary efforts proved superfluous when Sander worked late every night and invariably slid into the far side of the bed in the early hours of the morning. They shared the apartment on platonic terms because he had not touched her since she had been hospitalised, a state of affairs that
shook Tally; it had never crossed her mind that Sander might impose a moratorium on sex.

Finally she picked up her courage one night when he was stripping for bed in the dark, the husband who was almost becoming a stranger to her in his remoteness from her daily life and his endless working hours. ‘Sander?’

‘Sorry, did I wake you up?’

‘I want you to wake me up. I never see you.’ Tally sighed before thinking better of what might sound dangerously like a whine. ‘You know, I may be pregnant but I’m totally healthy. And according to the gynaecologist at my last check-up, it’s totally safe for us to make love …’

‘I’m too tired tonight,’ Sander delivered cuttingly, striding into the bathroom.

Cheeks flaming in the semi-darkness, Tally almost groaned out loud and chewed at her lower lip in squirming discomfiture. Perhaps she had been clumsy. She has assumed that her threatened miscarriage had made him reluctant to initiate sex. She didn’t know what else could be wrong. But then she didn’t know why he was shutting her out of his life to such an extent either. He didn’t talk about business or his working day, or if there were problems in either field. Worst of all was the sense she got that he was angry with her, that beneath that smooth, polite and always considerate façade of his he was like a powder keg ready to explode.

Was it her imagination that he was angry and avoiding her? She thought of the dark brooding look she had glimpsed in his stunning eyes, the clipped words and irritation, the antagonism she felt pulse in the abrupt silences that stretched even during the most casual exchanges. No, Tally was convinced that the anger was not only a figment of her imagination.

But what was Sander angry
about
? The blip in her
health that had spoiled the aftermath of their wedding? The simple fact that she was pregnant and likely to become unattractively rotund in the near future? The reality that marriage could seem rather boring to a guy accustomed to frequent changes of partner? Or had he just decided that he didn’t want to be with her any more? Was he only putting in his time with her until the baby was safely born?

Not so very long ago they had laughed at the same things, argued companionably and shared a terrific sexual bond but now, all of a sudden, when she was available every night he no longer seemed to find her attractive. But possibly he
was
tired, she reasoned ruefully. After all he was working incredibly long hours at Volakis Shipping and she suspected that he and his father rarely saw eye to eye, which had to be stressful and frustrating for a guy accustomed to calling all his own shots.

The following day, Tally sent Sander a text inviting him home for a meal at eight and then breaking free of her usual inhibitions, she went shopping at a lingerie boutique and stocked up on the kind of silk and lace apparel that she was convinced would appeal to any red-blooded male.