Buch lesen: «Dreaming Of... Greece»

CHAPTER ONE

“CHLOE? I’M SORRY I can’t be your maid of honor, but you know why.”

Following that statement there was a long silence on Chloe’s part. But Raina had her job plus the many responsibilities thrown onto her shoulders since the death of her grandfather. She was now heiress to the Maywood billion-dollar fortune and was constantly in the news. When she went out in public, the paparazzi were right on her heels.

Chloe’s family were high-profile Greek industrialists, a favorite target of the European paparazzi. Her marriage would be the top story in Athens. “If I were your maid of honor, the media would make a circus out of your special day.” Raina feared it would take the spotlight off her dear friend. For Chloe’s sake, she couldn’t risk it.

Too much had happened in the intervening years. It had been eight years, in fact, since Chloe had lived with Raina and her grandparents during her senior year of high school. But they’d stayed in touch by phone and the internet.

Three years ago Raina’s grandmother had died and Chloe had come to California with her parents for the funeral. Just nine months ago Raina’s grandfather had died and once again Chloe and her family had flown over to be with her for his funeral. Their close friendship had helped her get through her grief, and Chloe’s family had begged Raina to come back to Greece with them.

“Please tell me you understand, Chloe. I have no desire to intrude on your joy.”

“I don’t care about me.”

“But I do.”

After a resigned sigh Chloe said, “Then at least stay at the house with me and my family. After all you did for me when I lived with you, my parents are anxious to do everything they can for you.”

“Tell you what. After you’ve left on your honeymoon I’ll be thrilled to spend time with them before I fly back to California.”

“They’ll want you to stay for several months. Think about it. We could have such a wonderful time together.”

“I will think about it. As for right now I can’t wait to be at your reception. The photos you sent me in your wedding dress are fabulous!”

“But you won’t get to see me married at the church.”

“Much as I’m sorry about that, it’s better this way. I’ve already booked a room at the Diethnes Hotel. You can reach me on the phone there or on my cell phone. Chloe? You promise you haven’t told your fiancé my plans?”

“I swear it. Of course he knows all about you, but he doesn’t have any idea that you are coming to Greece.”

“Good. That’s how I want things to stay. This is going to be your day! If the press finds out I’m there, I’m afraid it will ruin things for you. Later this year I’ll fly over to meet him, or you can fly to California.”

“I promise. He’s so wonderful, I can’t eat or sleep.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Ta le-me, Chloe,” she said, using one of the few Greek expressions she still remembered, before hanging up.

Six years ago Raina had been in the same excited condition as her friend. Halfway through college she’d met Byron Wallace, a writer. After a whirlwind romance they were married. But it didn’t take long to see his selfish nature and suspect her new husband of being unfaithful. Armed with proof of his infidelity even before their two-year marriage anniversary, she’d divorced him, only to lose her grandmother to heart failure.

In her pain she vowed never to marry again. She’d told as much to her beloved, ailing grandfather who’d passed away from stomach cancer.

Chloe’s phone call a month ago about her impending marriage had come as a wonderful surprise. Since the death of Raina’s grandfather, it was the one piece of news that put some excitement back into her life.

The head of her team at the lab was aware she hadn’t taken a vacation in several years. He urged her to take the time off for as long as she wanted. “Go to Greece and be with your friend,” he’d said. “We’ll still be here when you get back.”

Raina thought about it. A change of scene to enjoy Chloe’s nuptials might be exactly what she needed.

* * *

Maybe it was the stress of everything she’d had to do before her flight to Athens, Greece. All Raina knew was that she had developed a splitting headache. She needed a strong painkiller. After filing out of the coach section to clear customs wearing jeans and a T-shirt, she retrieved her medium-sized suitcase and left the terminal late morning to find a taxi.

“The Diethnes Hotel, please,” she told the driver. The man at the travel agency in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, had booked the budget hotel for her. From there she could walk to Syntagma Square and the city center without problem.

Chloe had phoned her from Athens yesterday to exclaim over the gorgeous seventy-eight-degree temperature, perfect for her June wedding that would take place tomorrow. Considering the prominence of the Milonis and Chiotis families, it promised to be one of the country’s major society events of the summer.

Raina, a strawberry blonde with wavy hair cut neck length, looked at the clear blue Greek sky, a good omen for the impending festivities. Chloe was the sweetest girl in the world. Raina hoped she was marrying an honorable man who’d be true to her.

Raina hadn’t been so lucky in that department, but four years had passed since the divorce and she refused to let any remaining clouds dampen the excitement for her friend. Every woman went into marriage praying it would last forever. A woman had that right, didn’t she?

Once she’d been shown to her room and had unpacked, Raina went back downstairs for directions to the nearest pharmacy for headache medicine. The concierge told her there was a convenience store in the next block many of the American tourists frequented.

Raina thanked him and made her way down the street.

* * *

Akis Giannopoulos smiled at his best friend. “Are you ready to take the big plunge?”

Theo grinned. “You already know the answer to that question. If I’d had my way, I would have kidnapped Chloe and married her in private several months ago. But her mother and mine have had an agenda since the engagement. Wouldn’t you know the guest list includes a cast of thousands?”

“You’re a lucky man.” Akis was happy for him. Theo and Chloe seemed to be a perfect match. “Can I do any last-minute service for you before you become a married man?”

“You did more than enough helping me make all the hotel arrangements for our out-of-town guests. I suggest you go back to the penthouse. I need my best man relaxed before the big day tomorrow. Will your brother be there?”

“Vasso phoned me earlier. He’ll make it to the wedding, but then he has to get back to the grand opening so he’ll miss the reception.”

“Understood. So, I’ll see you at the church in the morning?”

Akis hugged him. “Try to keep me away.”

The two men had been friends for a long time. Naturally Akis was thrilled for Theo, but he was surprised to discover just how much he would miss the camaraderie they’d shared as bachelors. Having done so many things together, Akis was feeling a real sense of loss.

Theo’s life would now be swept up with Chloe’s. Falling in love with her had changed his friend. He was excited for this marriage. Akis marveled that Theo wanted it so much.

How could he feel so certain that marrying Chloe was the right thing for him?

Marriage meant a lifelong commitment. The woman would have to be so sensational. Akis couldn’t fathom finding such a woman.

Aware he was in a despondent mood that wasn’t like him, he left the bank Theo’s family had owned for several decades and decided to walk to the penthouse in order to shake it off. After the wedding rehearsal that had taken place this morning, exercise was what he needed.

Tourists had flooded into Athens. He saw every kind and description as he made his way to the Giannopoulos complex. After turning a corner, he almost bumped into a beautiful female in a T-shirt and jeans coming in his direction.

“Me seen xo rees, thespinis,” he apologized, getting out of her way just in time.

She murmured something he didn’t quite hear. For a moment their eyes locked. He felt like he’d suddenly come in contact with an electric current. She must have felt it, too, because he saw little bursts of violet coming from those velvety depths before she walked on. By the way she moved, she had a definite destination in mind. The last thing he saw was her blondish-red hair gleaming in the sun before she rounded the corner behind him.

* * *

Raina slowed down, shocked by what had just happened. Maybe it was her bad headache that had caused her to almost walk into the most gorgeous male she’d ever seen in her life. Not in her wildest dreams could she have conjured such a man.

She needed medicine fast!

Luckily the sign for the convenience store was in Greek and English. Alpha/Omega 24. Translation—everything from A to Z. That was a clever name for the store. Its interior looked like “everywhere USA.” There was a caution sign saying Wet Floor in both languages as you walked in.

She tiptoed over the newly mopped floor in her sandals to the counter. The male clerk, probably college age, helped her find the over-the-counter medicine section for headaches.

After picking it out plus a bottle of water, she followed him back to the counter to pay for the items with some euros. While she waited, she opened the water and took two pills. On her way out, the clerk asked her where she was staying. Raina told him she was just passing through and started for the exit. But somehow, she didn’t know how, she slipped and fell.

“Whoa—” Pain radiated from her ankle. The clerk rushed from behind the counter to help her get up. When she tried to stand, it really hurt. Hopefully the medicine would help tamp down the pain.

He hurried into a back room and brought out a chair so she could sit down. “I’m calling the hospital.”

“I don’t think there’s a need for that.”

He ignored her. “This is the store’s fault. You stay there.”

She felt the fool sitting there while there were customers coming in and out. The other clerk who’d mopped the floor waited on them. In a few minutes an ambulance drove up in front. By then she’d answered a few questions the clerk had asked in order to fill out an incident form.

Because she was incognito, she gave her grandmother’s name with her information so no one would pick up on her name. To her dismay there was a small crowd standing around as she was helped outside. Great! Exactly what she didn’t want.

“Thank you,” she said to the clerk before being helped into the back by one of the attendants. “You’ve been very kind and I appreciate it.”

Two hours later her sprain had been wrapped. She needed to put ice on it and elevate her leg to cut down the swelling. The ER doctor fitted her with crutches and sent them with her in the taxi, letting her know the bill would be taken care of by the store where she’d fallen.

After the wedding reception, Raina would make certain her insurance company would reimburse the store. After all, the accident was her fault.

For the time being, she needed to lie down and call room service for her meals and ice. How crazy was it that she would have to go to the reception tomorrow evening on crutches. No matter what, she refused to miss her dear friend’s celebration.

After flying all this way, how even crazier was it that all she could think about was the man she’d come close to colliding with earlier in the day. She’d never experienced anything like that before. The streets of Athens were crowded with hundreds of people. How was it that one man could rob her of breath just looking at him?

* * *

With a champagne glass in hand, Akis stood at the head table to toast the bride and groom. “It was a great honor Theo Chiotis bestowed on me when he asked me to be his best man. No man has had a better friend.” Except for Vasso, of course. “After meeting and getting to know Chloe, I can say without reservation that no man could have married a sweeter woman. To Theo and Chloe. May you always be as happy as you are today.”

After the crowd applauded, other friends of the bridal couple made their toasts. Akis was thankful his part in the long wedding-day festivities was officially over. When he felt a decent interval of time had passed, he would slip out of the luxurious Grand Bretagne Hotel ballroom unnoticed and leave for the penthouse.

To love a woman enough to go through this exhaustive kind of day was anathema to Akis. No man appreciated women more than he did, but his business affairs with thirty-year-old Vasso kept him too busy to enjoy more than a surface relationship that didn’t last long.

Though he congratulated himself on reaching the age of twenty-nine without yet succumbing to marriage, Theo’s wedding caused Akis to question what was going on with him and his brother.

The two of them had been in business since they were young boys. To this point in time no enduring love interest had interfered with their lives and they’d managed to make their dream to rise out of poverty come true. Besides owning a conglomerate of retail stores throughout Greece, they’d set up a charity Foundation with two centers, one in Greece, the other in New York City.

Their dirt-poor background might be a memory, but it was the one that drove them so they’d never know what it was like to go hungry again. Unfortunately their ascent from rags to riches didn’t come without some drawbacks. For various reasons both he and Vasso found it difficult to trust the women who came into their lives. They enjoyed brief relationships. But they grew leery when they came across women who seemed to love them for themselves, with no interest in their money. He thought about their parents who, though they were painfully poor and scraped for every drachma, had loved and were devoted to one another. They came from the same island with the same expectations of life and the ability to endure the ups and downs of marriage. Both Akis and Vasso wanted a union like their parents’, one that would last forever. But finding the right woman seemed to be growing harder.

Akis’s thoughts wandered back to the words he’d just spoken to the guests in the ballroom. He’d meant what he’d said about Chloe, who was kind and compatible. She suited Theo, who also had a winning nature. They both came from the same elite, socioeconomic background that helped them to trust that neither had an agenda. If two people could make it through this life together and be happy, he imagined they would.

Every so often he felt the maid of honor’s dark eyes willing him to pay attention to her. Althea Loris was one of Chloe’s friends, a very glamorous woman as yet unattached. She’d tried to corner him at various parties given before the wedding. Althea came from a good family with a modest income, but Akis sensed how much she wanted all the trappings of a marriage like Chloe’s.

Even if Akis had felt an attraction, he would have wondered if she’d set her eyes on him for what he could give her monetarily. It wasn’t fair to judge, but he couldn’t ignore his basic instinct about her.

There was nothing he wanted more than to be loved for himself. An imperfect self, to be sure. Both he and Vasso had been born into a family where you worked by the sweat of your brow all the days of your life. The idea of a formal education was unheard of, but he hadn’t worried about it until the summer right before he had to do his military service.

An Italian tourist named Fabrizia, who was staying on the island that July, had flirted with Akis at the store where he worked. He couldn’t speak Italian, nor she Greek, so they managed with passable English. He was attracted and spent time swimming with her when he could get an hour off. By the time she had to go home, he’d fallen for her and wanted to know when she’d be back.

After kissing him passionately she’d said, “I won’t be able to come.” In the next breath she’d told him she’d be getting married soon to one of the attorneys working for her father in Rome. “But I’ll never forget my beautiful grocery boy. Why couldn’t you be the attorney my parents have picked out for me?”

Not only had his pride taken a direct hit, her question had made him startlingly aware of his shortcomings, the kind that went soil-deep. The kind that separated the rich from the poor. From that time on, Akis had enjoyed several relationships with women, but they didn’t approach the level of his wanting to get married.

Too bad his brother had to leave after the wedding at the church and couldn’t attend the reception. He was away on important business at the moment so he couldn’t rescue Akis with a legitimate excuse to leave early. Akis would have to manufacture a good one on his own.

Thankfully the speeches were almost over. Chloe’s father was the last person to speak. After getting choked up because he was losing his precious daughter to Theo, he urged everyone to enjoy the rest of the evening and dance.

Akis watched as Theo escorted Chloe to the floor for the first dance. Soon other couples joined them. That meant Akis had to fulfill one last duty. It was expected that he ask Althea, who was more than eager to find herself in his arms.

“I’ve been waiting for this all day, Akis.”

He knew what she was saying, what she was hoping for, but he couldn’t force interest that wasn’t there. The long, exhausting wedding day was almost over. Akis couldn’t wait to leave, but he needed to choose his words carefully. “Unfortunately I still have business to do after the reception is over.”

Her head jerked up. “Business? Tonight?”

“My work is never done.” As the music was coming to an end, he danced her over to her parents’ table and let her go. “Thank you, Althea. Theo asked me to mingle so if you’ll excuse me, there’s one more person I should dance with before I leave.” The lie had just come to him.

While she looked at him with genuine disappointment, he smiled at her parents before he moved through the crowded room toward the rear of the ballroom. In order to prove he hadn’t told an untruth, he looked for any woman at one of the tables who didn’t have an escort, whom he could ask to dance.

At the round table nearest the rear doors he saw a woman sitting alone. Another couple sat across from her, but it was clear she didn’t have a man with her. Knowing Althea was still watching him, he walked toward the stranger. Maybe she was waiting for someone, but he’d take his chances.

Closer now he could make out classic features beneath hair an incredible light gold with a natural hint of red. He’d only seen hair that color on one other woman. His breath caught. She wore a pale blue silk suit jacket with a small enamel locket hanging around her neck. He imagined she was in her mid-twenties. He saw no rings.

Akis approached her. “Excuse me, thespinis. I see you’re alone for the moment. As best man of this wedding, if you’d permit, I’d like to dance with you.”

Her eyes lifted to his.

Those eyes. They were the same eyes he’d looked into yesterday, but tonight he discovered they were a stunning shade of lavender blue and he found himself lost in them.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Greek.”

Her comment jarred him back to the present. What was this American beauty doing at Theo’s wedding reception? Switching to unpolished English he said, “We passed in the street yesterday.”

“I remember almost bumping into you,” she murmured, averting her eyes. He noticed with satisfaction that a nerve throbbed in her throat above her locket. She was as excited as he was by this unexpected meeting. “I came close to knocking you down because I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

He smiled. “No problem. Just now I asked you to dance, but perhaps you’re waiting for the man who brought you.”

A delicate flush filled her cheeks. “No. I came alone. Thank you for the invitation, but I was just getting ready to leave.”

He wasn’t about to let her go a second time. “Surely you can spare one dance with me? I need rescuing.”

“Where’s your wife?”

“I’ve never had a wife. As for a girlfriend, I haven’t had one in months.” It was the truth.

“Then who was the woman with the long black hair you were dancing with moments ago?”

So she’d noticed. “You’re very observant. She was the maid of honor. It would have been unkind not to dance with her.”

With a twinkle in her eyes, she leaned to the right and retrieved a pair of crutches from the floor. She stood them on end. “Unless you’re prepared for your feet to be impaled by one of these, I’ll do you a favor and exit the room.”

She’d surprised Akis. This had to be a very recent injury. Her legitimate excuse to turn him down only fed his determination to get to know her better. Yesterday he’d wanted to pursue her, but hadn’t dared for fear of alarming her. “Then let me help you.”

Without hesitation he took the crutches from her and waited until she got to her feet. She was probably five foot seven, with enticing curves. The matching suit skirt covered womanly hips and slender legs. His gaze fell lower to the left ankle that had been wrapped. She wore a sandal on her foot and a low-heeled shoe on the other.

“Thank you.” She reached for the crutches and fit them beneath her arms. The delicate fragrance emanating from her assailed him. “Why don’t you ask the other woman at my table to dance? I’m sure her partner won’t mind.”

“I’d rather help you to your room.”

“I’m not staying here.”

That was interesting. He’d helped Theo make arrangements for all their out-of-town guests to stay here. “Then I’ll walk you outside and take you wherever you’d like to go.”

“As long as you’re offering, I wouldn’t say no if you hailed a taxi for me. I’m craving my hotel room so I can elevate my leg.”

“I’ll do better than that.” Akis accompanied her from the ballroom and down the hall to the foyer. The woman at his side managed her crutches with little trouble. En route he phoned his driver and told him to come to the hotel entrance.

As they walked outside, flashes from the cameras of the paparazzi blinded them. Chloe and Theo’s wedding would be the top story making the ten o’clock news on television. Video of prominent guests and the best man attending the reception filmed by TV news crews would be included.

Some of the paparazzi called out questions about the beautiful woman with Akis. He hated the attention though he was used to it, and kept walking her to the smoked-glass limo without answering them. He took her crutches so she could get in, then he followed and shut the door before sitting opposite her. “Are you all right?”

“I am. Are you?”

“I am now. The press is unrelenting. Tell me where you’re staying and I’ll let the driver know.”

“The Diethnes.”

A lot of tourists on a budget frequented two-star hotels like that one. Until he and Vasso had started making money, he could never have afforded to stay at any hotel. Period. Akis gave his driver directions and they pulled away from the Grand Bretagne. “When did you have time to injure your ankle?”

She let out a sound of exasperation. “It happened right after you and I passed on the sidewalk. I had a headache and was on my way to a store for some medicine. While I was inside, I slipped on the wet floor. It was such a stupid accident, totally my fault for not paying attention. The clerk was incredibly kind and called the ambulance for me.”

Akis mulled over her answer. Had she decided it would be easier to attend the reception rather than the wedding because of her injury? If she’d been at the church, he wouldn’t have been able to take his eyes off her during the ceremony.

“Are you in pain?”

“Not really. It’s more a dull ache until I rest it.”

“I’m sorry you had to fall, especially the day before the wedding.”

“Funny about life, isn’t it?” she murmured. “You never know what’s going to happen when you get up in the morning.” The almost haunted tone in her voice intrigued him.

“How true. When I left for the wedding, I didn’t know I was going to meet the lovely stranger who’d passed me on the street yesterday.”

“Or be chased by the maid of honor tonight,” she said in a wry tone. “Am I mistaken, or were you taking flight?”