Page 14 of Forgotten Greek Proposal
‘Poor you, but if you want my recovery to be smooth, I suggest you rethink any plans you might have dreamed up of locking me away until our wedding day while you get on with your non-exciting work, otherwise you’ll find the wedding having to be postponed on account of me jumping out of a window and probably breaking my legs.’
There was another crease in his brow before his features loosened and he gave a short burst of laughter.
The only creases on his face now the lines around his eyes, he folded his arms and tilted his head. ‘Consider your comment noted.’
Absurdly thrilled at the sound of his laughter, probably because if she’d had to put money on it she’d have said his vocal cords didn’t stretch to laughing, Lucie mimicked his stance and riposted, ‘Consider your consideration of my comment noted.’
The amusement on his face lasting longer than any of his previous smiles, he inclined his head towards a door leading outside. ‘Now that we have noted each other’s comments, shall we go on deck so you can see your home for the next few weeks?’
* * *
Lucie’s home for the next few weeks—there were plans for them to stay on Sephone a week after the wedding too, for their honeymoon—was the most stunningly beautiful place she’d ever seen. Even before the yacht had moored she understood exactly why Thanasis had chosen this particular island as his private hideaway.
Sephone rose from the crystal-clear blue waters of the Aegean like the majestic goddess it was named after, the mountainous terrain thick with vineyards and olives groves, sheer drops creating coves where the sea lapped onto some of the palest, softest-looking sand she’d ever seen.
Travelling with Thanasis by golf buggy to the villa over a wide, snaking pathway that had to be manmade but seemed as natural as the sweet-smelling flowers lining it, Lucie breathed in the pure air with a sense of wonder she didn’t think she’d ever experienced before, and then she caught her first glimpse of the villa and nearly overdosed on it.
Nestled above a hidden cove with waters of the palest blue, multiple white domes with blue-domed roofs of varying sizes connected to create one palatial wonder amassed with an abundance of arched and circular windows, all blending into something not only beautiful but sensual, as if the architect had eschewed anything that could be construed as a straight line. It was like nothing she’d seen before, a home any goddess would be proud to inhabit.
‘Who designedthis?’ she asked, close to breathless with admiration.
‘Thomas Breakwell.’
‘No way.Thomasdesigned this?’
Although she was too busy gaping at the stunning villa, she felt Thanasis’s stare fall on her. ‘You know him?’
‘He hired our company to do the interiors for the showrooms of his apartment complex in Canary Wharf. I would never have guessed this was one of his.’
‘I put the tender out with the vision of what I wanted. He was the architect who most understood the feel of what I was seeking.’
‘Good for him…although now I’m wondering how come I didn’t know of it.’ At Thanasis’s questioning stare, she explained, ‘When we were pitching for the Canary Wharf project, Kelly got me to trawl through his company website. There is no way I would have forgotten this…’ Her spirits suddenly plummeted. ‘Unless there’s more holes we didn’t know about in my memories?’
‘You wouldn’t have seen it on his website,’ he assured her. ‘The project was undertaken in secrecy.’
‘How come?’
‘I didn’t want the world to know about the island. It only encourages tourists to try and find it.’
‘Then why are we marrying here? From what Mum was saying, the whole world and their dogs are coming.’
‘Sometimes it feels like that,’ he admitted wryly. ‘Sephone was chosen because it has the romantic feel we thought it necessary to portray when we marry. To work and soothe our business investors, our marriage needs to be believable.’
‘So you’re giving up your secret hideaway for the greater good?’ The tourists he’d bought the island to escape from would soon be poring over maps trying to figure out where in the Aegean Sephone was located.
‘Some sacrifices are worth making.’
‘Is that what I said when I agreed to the marriage?’
‘If I recall correctly, you said you expected a nomination to be given on your behalf to the Nobel Prize panel.’
Meeting his eye for the first time since they’d got into the golf buggy, she grinned even as her heart swelled. ‘That definitely sounds like something I would say.’
Thanasis, knowing she wouldn’t be smiling if she remembered the context of her comment, nonetheless curved his lips, and was saved from having to say anything further on the subject by their buggy coming to a stop in front of the huge semi-circular timber door.
Her Nobel Prize nomination comment had come at the end of their first meeting in the hotel bar. If he was remembering correctly—and his memory had never failed him before—her exact words, thrown at her stepbrother Alexis, had been, ‘If I pull this off and convince the world I’m in love with that…’ she’d glared at Thanasis ‘…man, and that everything between our two families is now all jolly hockey sticks and cream buns, then I’d better get a Nobel Prize nomination out of it.’
‘Would you like a nomination for sainthood too?’ Thanasis had asked acidly.
