Page 36 of Forgotten Greek Proposal
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s business and I need you here to supervise the wedding preparations.’
‘That’s what Griselda’s paid to do.’
‘We are marrying in two days,matia mou. One of us needs to be here, to be on hand if anything important crops up. You might be needed for another dress fitting too.’
Then, as if her morning for shocks wasn’t already complete, Thanasis pressed a hand to the side of her head and swooped a kiss to her mouth. Green eyes glimmering, he said, ‘I will be back before you have time to miss me.’ And then he kissed her again, a hard, almost possessive kiss that left her seeing stars long after he’d disappeared into his room.
* * *
It was as she was swimming back to her own room that another concrete memory hit Lucie. It had to be the day she’d met Thanasis for the first time because he’d been standing with Alexis by a dark hotel bar. Other than the bartender, they’d been the only people in there. Both had been watching the door, waiting for her arrival.
She remembered the smell of the bar. Wine. A subtle but significant difference from the scent of stale beer she’d grown used to during her nights out in her six years living permanently in London.
She’d been excited to meet him. She remembered that too. Could feel the fizzing anticipation that had filled her as she’d walked through the door to him.
And she remembered how their eyes had locked together and the stunned flare of recognition on his face. The fizzing joy had almost spilled out of her to realise he too remembered that chance brief encounter from six years before. That he rememberedher.
CHAPTER TEN
THANASIS’S LUNGS WAITEDuntil Sephone had disappeared on the horizon before opening fully. He was quite sure Lucie had watched the helicopter until it was nothing but a dot in the distant sky.
He put his head back and closed his eyes. He’d hated disappointing her by refusing to let her come with him, and it disturbed him just howmuchhe’d hated disappointing her, but he couldn’t risk having her in Athens until after the wedding. Couldn’t risk her memories being triggered before he had the chance to explain everything to her.
The biggest truth though, another truth he could not share with her, was that he needed space away from her because he didn’t know how much longer he could do this.
He wanted her with a desperation he’d never known it was possible to feel. He wanted all of her. Forget any future wife. No one could make him feel a fraction of what Lucie made him feel. That truth had hit him first in the chapel when he’d tried to picture the ideal wife of his future and then tried to picture marrying her in that same chapel. He’d failed to conjure any face but Lucie’s. It was a truth that had solidified watching the sunset with her. Lucie was the only woman he wanted. The only wife he wanted.
Somehow he had to make it through to the wedding and pray that her dream about Athena wasn’t the start of her memories returning. If that dream expanded into a full-blown memory before he had the chance to explain everything to her…
The confession he’d known he must make since he’d agreed to this charade had changed since he’d first envisaged making it. Initially, he’d imagined himself laying all the facts on the table and, while not exactly relishing the shock that was bound to follow, being unmoved by any histrionics. It had been Lucie’s own fault, after all, that the need to lie to her had been deemed necessary by any of them.
To envisage his confession now, to imagine her shock, to imagine herhurt…
It was enough to fill his guts with an acidic dread that spread into every inch of him.
* * *
Lucie sat on the soft sandy beach of the cove nearest the villa late that afternoon, binoculars she’d managed to pilfer from a member of Thanasis’s staff glued to her face. She was watching the little white dot on the horizon grow bigger. It was a yacht, a very large yacht, and it was clearly headed towards Sephone.
Who could it be? she wondered. Thanasis had mentioned there would be around fifty yachts moored around the island for the wedding, but she’d assumed they’d all be arriving either Friday—tomorrow—or on the wedding day itself.
The yacht was coming closer. Could it be one of the singers who’d be performing for them? It looked like the kind of vessel a particular world-famous diva was often photographed sunning herself on surrounded by all her sycophants. Or maybe it was one of the tech billionaires named on the guest list she’d pored over earlier? Or any of the billionaires listed, she supposed. Owning a floating palace was pretty much part of the billionaire job description, and she was very grateful for it, having spent many wonderful months of her childhood partying and having fun on Georgios’s. Mostly fun, in any case. If Athena was in an accepting mood then everything would be great. If she was in one of her bitchy moods then Lucie had known it was safer to stay in her cabin. The Tsaliki males, including her brother Loukas, had all been good company but without Athena by her side she’d never been able to properly relax, had always felt she had to try too hard to be a good sport about all the boyish pranks and japes.
A sudden thought struck her and made her stomach plummet. What if it was Athena with her current beau—Athenaalwayshad a current beau—on that yacht?
Something unpleasant had happened between her and Athena since Lucie’s engagement to Thanasis. She was certain of it. Certain too, having thought about it incessantly since he’d flown off to Athens, that Thanasis knew it too and was trying to protect her from it.
The call of her name shook her out of her thoughts, and she turned her head to find the butler heading to her with a message from Thanasis. Friends of his were arriving early and had invited them to dine on their yacht that evening, and could she please be ready to leave at eight p.m.
Well, that explained the yacht, she thought, cheering right up, and with the same fizz in her veins that had filled her all those months ago when she’d walked through the door to meet her fiancé for the first time, Lucie danced back to the villa and up to her bedroom and through to her dressing room to find something to wear for their first real date since all her memories had been wiped.
* * *
Thanasis splashed off the foam from his neck and face and patted himself dry.
