Chapter Six #2
‘Neither is clinging to an outdated monstrosity that was worth nothing, certainly nowhere near what I paid for it. Tell me honestly—before I solved your problem for you and paid way over the market price, when was the last time you’d seen a decent profit?
And don’t trot out the “money isn’t everything” excuse.
Bursary or not, you didn’t go through university and come out with two degrees to manage a failing business whose only appeal was that it bore your name.
A business which fell apart at the slightest pressure from competition. ’
‘Slightest pressure?’ she scoffed. ‘You’re joking, right? You ruthlessly targeted us and didn’t let up until we had no choice but to give in.’
His hand slashed through the air. ‘And you’re well aware of my primary reasons for that. But we’re straying from the subject. You can be my opponent in the custody court or my wife. You decide.’
The final, clanging ultimatum.
She sucked in a slow breath. Despite single mothers having been a thing since the dawn of time, she knew first-hand the judgement that could come from society with such a status.
People would wonder what she’d done to end up without the support of a man: whether it was a wild and foolish feminist strike for independence or whether she had loose morals or just plain bad luck.
Not that being married was any guarantee or insulation from judgement.
Vayle swallowed, every brave and independent reason she wanted to cling to crumbling away, knowing in her heart she could at the very least consider the outcome for Angelos, ensuring her child wouldn’t carry even a hint of the stigma that shouldn’t exist but still did.
That he would at least have his father in his life on whatever basis they could agree on.
Wasn’t that the fundamental reason she’d persisted in trying to let Nelios know he’d fathered a child—to give her child options?
And all this option would take would be to submit to a loveless, emotionless union—that or be locked in a legal battle which outcome she could foretell, having just been through a battle with Nelios only a year ago.
Well, she thought a little hysterically, perhaps not entirely emotionless.
Because she felt very many things in this moment, including the almost childish urge to scream that life wasn’t fair.
But, to be fair, she’d landed herself in this situation.
She’d chosen to sleep with him. To lose herself in wild, unfettered lust.
But, perhaps childishly, she could blame him for being entirely too handsome, too charismatic and too dynamic with those chiselled good looks, capable hands and sinful lips! He was a sorcerer who’d enchanted her and he deserved some of her ire for it.
‘Careful, there, you look as if you’re about to claw my face off. Not quite how I imagined you responding to my proposal,’ he rasped, eyes backlit with a blaze she couldn’t quite interpret. Which made her feel some more.
She breathed in and forced her clenched hands to unfurl. ‘How did you imagine it, then? Me, prostrate at your feet in abject gratitude?’
His head tilted and, damn him, his eyes glinted in mocking appreciation. ‘Hmm. Now there’s an idea.’
‘Well, dream on. It’s not going to happen.’ The snap in her voice drew Angelos’s attention. Happily gorged on his meal, he lifted his head, his brown eyes staring raptly before, cracking a milky smile, he turned his attention to Nelios.
Father and son commenced another staring match, which continued even as Nelios lifted his hand and slowly, for the very first time, brushed his fingers over his son’s crown.
The breath that shuddered out of him—the briefest insight into his raw possessiveness and determination as he cradled his son’s head—cemented the reluctant belief that, no, Nelios would never harm their baby.
That perhaps, far from that, he would strive to move mountains for his flesh and blood.
Should she choose to stand in his way, she might well be obliterated in the process.
So she chose. Wisely.
The stately manor in the Hertfordshire countryside was her choice of wedding venue, because Nelios had wanted to whisk her off to Greece.
That had been Vayle’s second demand. Her first had been that Agnes attend their wedding. It had been non-negotiable.
The third demand, that had caused a near-seismic event, had by far been her boldest. Part of her agreement to become Mrs Nelios Petralis for the best part of the next two decades was that Nelios have five-hour-long meetings with his mother, all to take place within the next three months—also non-negotiable.
He’d levelled a withering look at her that she’d withstood while burping his son, then, when the heavens had rewarded her efforts with Angelos’s loud burp, she’d enquired whether Nelios wanted to hold his son for the first time.
Ne, he’d said, his voice deep, shaken.
She’d handed him a wide-eyed Angelos. He’d surged to his feet and prowled the living room, all lithe power and grace, his eyes locked on his son.
After the third circuit, when he’d dropped the softest, lingering kiss on Angelos’s forehead and exhaled long and hard, he’d stopped in front of her, looked down with that primitive, possessive light in his eyes and said huskily, ‘You have a deal.’
Lawyers had been summoned and papers drawn up. She’d received an email with a veritable laundry list of what needed to be done by her and by his army of minions before they exchanged vows in a matter of weeks.
And here she was, watching the final touches being put to the transformed grounds which would host the exclusive one-hundred-strong list of Nelios Petralis’s honoured guests. Well, ninety-eight to her two: Agnes and Angelos.
She forced down a mouthful of granola and returned to the gorgeous suite decorated with a blushing bride-to-be in mind.
Vayle would’ve snorted under her breath at how far she was from that description if the knot beneath her breastbone didn’t rub her the wrong way every time she tried to take a breath.
It wasn’t heartache, or wishes harboured and discarded.
Definitely not. She was going into this thing with her eyes wide open.
Far from not wanting his son, as she had thought, Nelios was in full claiming mode. She still didn’t know if he’d known of his existence or not—a fact yet to be established.
She was doing what was best for her son.
And her ‘surrogate mother’. Agnes breaking down in happy tears on hearing the news had cemented the issue for Vayle.
On that, Vayle’s heart was at ease. What she was not at ease with was the way her heart behaved around Nelios.
And not just her heart. A frisson seized her whole being whenever he was within touching distance, like the echo of a tuning fork.
It was why she’d requested a special clause in their agreement: no sex.
A demand Nelios had treated with a sliver of sardonicism and a flash of taut rancour before his impressive self-control had reasserted itself, followed by an imperious wave of dismissal, and he’d signed his name with a flourish, sealing their fate.
After checking in on Angelos, judging she had about half an hour before he woke, she stepped into the lavish bathroom and indulged in a luxurious shower, hoping it would dilute some of the jitters swarming her belly.
Predictably, as her hands moved over her body, she was struck by an ominous voice demanding to know if she’d been wise to add that clause to their agreement. Because she had liked having sex with Nelios, and eighteen years was a very long time to condemn herself to celibacy.
But, as she braced her hand against the wall and tried to resist taking care of the urgent need pounding between her legs, she accepted that part of why she’d felt so devastated by what had happened the next morning, besides the humiliation, was because their night together had meant something to her besides a physical exchange of desire and pleasure.
There was wisdom to knowing which battles were un-winnable. And, as much as it thrilled her very blood to go toe to toe with Nelios over his domineering manner, she recognised that the subject of sex was one she would do well to stay away from.
Because sex with him had transcended her every reality.
It had sent her to a place where she was at her weakest, where she would’ve happily handed over more than just her body to him for the chance to experience it again.
And, yes, that too was the reason his rejection had hit her all the more viciously.
So, sex would have to remain off the table so she could guard more important things, such as her sanity. Her heart.
Her son didn’t disappoint her and rose like clockwork from his mid-morning nap the moment she stepped out of the shower, demanding a feed. She used it gratefully to occupy her mind as the time ticked down to when the couturier and her small army would descend on her a mere hour later.
By midday, Vayle was fully installed in the ivory Italian duchesse-satin gown with a pleated corset top and sleeves that sat just off her shoulders.
The necklace of round-cut diamonds set in white gold, with a pink teardrop diamond pendant that rested on the pulse point at her throat, had been delivered last night courtesy of Nelios.
Matching earrings graced her lobes and a simple bracelet, her right wrist.
The team of attendants had just finished arranging her hair in an elaborate, tasteful chignon when she looked up and saw Agnes standing several feet away, a tearful smile on her face.
She twisted in her seat, her own smile growing tentatively.
‘Can we have some privacy, please? Just for a few moments.’
She rose as the attendants relocated to the living room, and approached the older woman, her hands outstretched.
Agnes’s lips wobbled a little bit more before she firmed them. ‘You look beautiful, agapita.’
‘So do you,’ Vayle murmured.