Marion Lennox
Betrothed: To the People’s Prince
A book in the Marrying His Majesty series, 2009
CHAPTER ONE
INTO her crowd of beautiful people came…Nikos.
She was taking a last visual sweep of the room, noting descriptions for tomorrow’s fashion column.
The men were almost uniformly in black-black T-shirts, black jeans and designer stubble. The women were Audrey Hepburn clones. Cinched waists, wide skirts and pearls. The fifties look was now.
There was little eating. Cinched waists and ‘body slimmers’ didn’t allow for snacking, the waiters were sparse and it wasn’t cool to graze.
Nikos was holding a beer, and as the waiter passed with a tray of tiny caviar-loaded blinis he snagged four. He tipped one into his mouth, then turned back to search the room.
For her.
After all these years, he could still stop her world.
She’d forgotten to breathe. It was important to breathe. She took a too-big sip of her too-dry Martini and it went down the wrong way.
Uh-oh. If it wasn’t cool to eat, it was even more uncool to choke.
But help was at hand. Smooth and fast as a panther, Nikos moved through the crowd to be by her side in an instant. He took her drink, slapped her back with just the right amount of force, and then calmly waited for her to recover.
Nikos.
She could faint, she thought wildly. An ambulance could take her away and she’d be in a nice, safe emergency room. Safe from the man she’d walked away from almost ten years ago.
But fainting took skills she didn’t have. No one seemed about to call for help. No one seemed more than politely interested that she was choking.
Except Nikos.
She didn’t remember him as this big. And this…gorgeous? He was wearing faded blue jeans instead of the designer black that was de rigueur in this crowd. His shirt was worn white cotton, missing the top two buttons. He had an ancient leather jacket slung over his arm.
The fashion editor part of her was appreciative. Nice.
More than nice. Nikos.
She coughed on, more than she needed to, trying desperately to give herself space. His dark hair was curly, unruly and a bit too long. His brown-black eyes were crinkled at the edges, weathered from a life at sea. Among this crowd of fake tans, his was undeniably real. His whole body was weathered by his work.
Nikos. Fisherman.
Her childhood love.
He’d grown from a gorgeous boy into a…what? She didn’t have words to describe it. She was the fashion editor of one of the world’s leading glossies, and she was lost for words.
Words were what she needed. She had to think of something to say. Anything. Almost every eye in the room was on them now. She couldn’t retreat to choking again.
‘You want your drink back?’ His tone was neutrally amused. Deeper than last time she’d heard him. A bit gravelly, with a gorgeous Greek accent.
Sexy as hell.
He was balancing his beer, her Martini and his three remaining blinis. He’d used his spare hand to thump her.
He was large and capable and…
Nikos.
Now she’d stopped choking, the crowd had turned their attention to him. Well, why wouldn’t they? The models, designers, media and buyers were openly interested. Maybe more than interested. Their concentrated attention contained more than a hint of lust.
‘You going to live?’ Nikos asked mildly, and she thought about it. She might. If he went away.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Looking for you.’
‘It’s invitation only.’
‘Yep,’ he said, as if that hadn’t even crossed his mind as something to bother about. How had he done it? People would kill for an invitation to this launch. He’d simply walked in.
‘You look cute,’ he said, raking her from head to toe.
Right. She’d gone to some trouble with her outfit. Her tiny red skirt was clinging in the right places, she’d managed to make her unruly black curls stay in a knot that was almost sophisticated, but in this crowd of fashion extremists she knew she disappeared.
‘Go away,’ she said, and he shook his head.
‘I can’t do that, Princess.’
‘Don’t call me that.’
‘It’s what you are.’
‘Please, Nikos, not here.’
‘Whatever,’ he said easily. ‘But we need to talk. Phones don’t work. You keep hanging up.’
‘You don’t hang up phones any more.’ Very knowledgeable, she thought. What sort of inane talk was this?
‘On Argyros we hang up telephones. After we talk to people.’
‘I don’t live on Argyros.’
‘Yeah, that’s what I want to talk to you about. It’s time you came home.’ He handed her back her Martini. He drained his beer and ate his three bite-sized blinis, then looked about for more. Two waiters were beside him in an instant.
He always had been charismatic, Athena thought. People gravitated to him.
She’d gravitated to him.
‘So how about it?’ he said, smiling his thanks to the waiters. Oh, that smile…
‘Why would I want to come home?’
‘There’s the little matter of the Crown. I’m thinking you must have read the newspapers. Your cousin, Demos, says he’s talked to you. I’m thinking Alexandros must have talked to you as well-or did you hang up on him, too?’
‘Of course I didn’t.’
‘So you do know you’re Crown Princess of Argyros.’
‘I’m not Crown Princess of anything. Demos can have it,’ she said savagely. ‘He wants it.’
‘Demos is second in line. You’re first. It has to be you.’
‘I have the power to abdicate. Consider me abdicated. Royalty’s outdated and absurd, and my life’s here. So, if you’ll excuse me…’
‘Thena, you don’t have a choice. You have to come home.’
Thena. He was the only one who’d ever shortened her name. It made her feel…as she had no business feeling.
Just tell it like it is and move on, she told herself. Be blunt and cold and not interested. He was talking history. Argyros was no longer anything to do with her.
‘You’re right,’ she managed. ‘I don’t have a choice. My life is here.’
But not in this room. All of a sudden the room was claustrophobic. Her past was colliding with her present, and it made her feel as if the ground was shaking underneath her.
She and Nikos in the same room? No, no, no.
She and Nikos in the same city? She and Nikos and their son?
No!
Fear had her almost frozen.
‘Nikos, this is futile,’ she managed. ‘There’s no use telling me to go home. My home is here. Meanwhile, I have things to attend to, so if you’ll excuse me…’ She handed her Martini glass back to him and, before he could respond she swivelled and made her way swiftly through the crowd.
She reached the door-and she kept on walking.
She hadn’t retrieved her checked coat. It didn’t matter. Outside was cold, but she wasn’t feeling cold. Her face was burning. She was shaking.
Maybe he’d let her be.
Or maybe not. He hadn’t come all the way from Argyros to be ignored.
It was raining. Her stilettos weren’t built for walking. She wanted to take them off and run. Because of course he’d follow.
Of course he did.
When he fell in step beside her she felt as if she’d been punched. Nikos…He threatened her world.
‘Where are we going?’ he asked mildly.
‘Nowhere you’re welcome.’
‘Is this any way to greet family?’
‘I’m not your family.’
‘Tell that to my mother.’
His mother…She thought of Annia and felt a stab of real regret. She glanced sideways at Nikos-and then looked swiftly away. Annia…Argyros…
Nikos.
She’d walked away from them ten years ago. Leaving had broken her heart.
‘It’s your heritage,’ he said mildly, as if he was simply continuing the conversation from back at the fashion launch.