The Volakis Vows: The Marriage Betrayal / Bride for Real

Tally picked up on the brittle shaken note in her mother’s admission and scrambled out of her seat to wrap her arms round the thin, attractive blonde. Crystal might have a messy love life and be foolish with money, but Tally loved her mother and hated to see her hurting. ‘Oh, Mum, I’m sorry!’

‘I’ve been dumped,’ Crystal confided thickly, tears glazing her eyes. ‘I’m the one who usually does the dumping but I didn’t see it coming. I was a fool, I thought Peter was with me for the long haul …’

Tally gave the taller woman a comforting hug. ‘Never mind. You’ll meet someone else.’

‘It’s not that easy any more.’ Crystal sighed. ‘I’m forty-three next birthday, not twenty-three. Men my age want much younger women, and they get them too.’

Navel-gazing wasn’t Crystal’s thing, however, and within a couple of days Tally’s mother had regained her spirits and her extensive net of contacts and busy social calendar played their part in that revival. That weekend, Crystal headed off with a female friend to spend a week in a swanky Scottish castle. Tally, who tried to keep her mother’s financial affairs in order, stayed home to be dismayed by the size of the older woman’s credit-card bills when they arrived in the post. Crystal could spend as if there were no tomorrow and Peter, a wealthy retiree, was no longer around to support her taste for the high life. Tally resolved to make yet another attempt to persuade her mother to live more within her means. At the start of the following week, she saw Binkie off on her annual summer trip home to Poland where she stayed with her relatives.

The following evening the bell buzzed at seven. Local children had been playing the annoying game of ringing the bell and running away and Tally answered the door with a frown because she expected to find the doorstep empty. But when she found Sander Volakis there instead, his tall, beautifully built body elegantly attired in a charcoal-grey suit teamed with a gold silk tie, she was totally thrown off balance.

One part of her wanted to slam the door and double-lock it, but it was an urge mainly fostered by the awareness that she hadn’t combed her hair since lunchtime and was wearing very little make-up. As a young woman who prided herself on her common sense, she was dismayed by her sudden attack of vanity, while the other, more dominant part of her response to his appearance was to simply stare at him and enjoy the view. And when Sander, his jaw line roughened by a five o’clock shadow of stubble that only enhanced his classic masculine features and wide sensual mouth, settled his stunning night-dark eyes on her, he was very much a sight to be savoured.

‘Tally,’ he purred like a jungle cat on the prowl, studying her from beneath heavy black lashes and very much liking what he saw.

Tally didn’t do fussy fashion and her denim miniskirt and white cotton top could not have been plainer. Yet rarely had Sander been so aware of a woman’s lush curves at breast and hip or her shapely legs. As self-conscious colour stained her creamy cheeks and her green eyes widened and then veiled to conceal their expression an unfamiliar stab of possessiveness gripped him.

‘Ask me in,’ he urged.

‘No,’ Tally mumbled, her hand clinging to the door and pushing it a little more closed in rebellion.

‘Are you that scared of what might happen?’ Sander quipped with a husky sound of amusement.

‘Nothing would happen,’ Tally fielded stiffly. ‘Been there, done that.’

‘But you haven’t. We’ve barely begun,’ Sander countered forcefully, frustrated by her blank refusal to accept that reality.

‘Your choice, then,’ Tally traded, her face warm as she made that blunt reminder of the manner in which he had withdrawn from their short-lived intimacy. ‘My choice now is not to take it any further.’

‘But you’re making the wrong choice,’ Sander told her with impregnable confidence.

‘You only think that because it’s not what you want and I’m pretty sure that you only ever do what you want,’ Tally rattled off at equal speed.

‘Women don’t usually argue with me.’

‘Well, you definitely don’t want to be spending time with me, Sander,’ Tally declared. ‘I think I’d always be arguing with you.’

That quip provoked a spontaneous laugh from Sander that lightened the intensity on his lean, dark, brooding features. ‘You challenge me—’

‘Which you would enjoy for what … all of five minutes?’ Tally cut in unimpressed. ‘You know what your problem is? You’re bored. That’s the only reason you’re wasting your time sending me flowers and turning up where you’re not welcome.’

For a split second, Sander was stunned by the realisation that she was spot on with that assessment. Of late, the women he took to bed had become very predictable and unexciting. In fact, he could not recall when a woman had last stirred this amount of interest in him and he wondered if it was possible that Tally’s resistance was the greatest part of her attraction. Just for once, a woman was not falling into his arms like an overripe plum or making a huge effort to please and flatter him. Indeed Tally Spencer didn’t think much of him and had no reservations about letting him know the fact.

‘I spoke too frankly and offended you. Is that all you’ve got against me?’

‘No, it’s not. You’re rich and spoilt and you think you deserve special treatment. We’ve got nothing in common, Sander.’

‘Except this, which you can’t deny …’ And before Tally could even guess his own intention, he had stepped forward to lower his handsome dark head and seal his mouth to hers in a kiss that hurtled through her unprepared body like a depth charge primed to explode on contact. Shivering, her lips swollen and tingling from the drugging pressure of his, Tally experienced a tugging ache at the very heart of her that left her literally weak at the knees.

Sander slowly lifted his head again, his brilliant gaze glittering gold enticement. ‘Dinner tomorrow night. I’ll pick you up at eight.’

And with that intense assurance that was so integral a part of him, Sander strode off without awaiting her response. Tally blinked, leant back against the door to dizzily close it and knew that he had played a blinder. That one scorching kiss, which her heart was still racing from, had nothing to do with intellect and had contrived to kill all rational thought within seconds. She thought of not being there when he called to collect her but that struck her as cowardice. Later, she fell into bed in a daze, her brain at war with an overriding but indefensible desire to see him again …

CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_d1987258-12f0-5be9-9fd1-ac7c2d5d27e5)

TALLY went out to dinner sporting her best jeans teamed with a red top that had a low back.

She refused to agonise over the inadequacies of her under-resourced wardrobe or to get into debt buying a new outfit that she couldn’t afford. Nothing could more keenly illustrate the differences between them than her lack of fancy designer togs, but she was not going to feel embarrassed about it, she told herself firmly. She was less proud of the fact that she rifled through her mother’s make-up drawer to bolster her own meagre collection of cosmetics and had used eyeliner for only the second time in her life.

‘What did you do today?’ Sander enquired lazily, his attention dwelling with pleasure on the natural sway of her pouting breasts below the thin fabric of her top as she sat down. The conviction that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath it sparked a fire of anticipation in his loins. Thoughts of Tally had interfered with his concentration throughout his working day, an unusual enough development for a male used to keeping his sex life safely corralled within his leisure time. But lust had its own impetus and he recognised the fact, convinced that once his desire was satisfied he would recapture his inherent detachment.

‘Work experience with a design firm at Putney,’ she revealed, choosing not to add that so far she had been kept well away from the clients and firmly in the background running messages and sourcing supplies. She was eager for the chance to utilise her creative talents. ‘I have my final exams in a couple of months, so I’m starting to apply for jobs as well.’

‘You’re studying?’ Sander frowned in surprise. ‘Where does your job with Cosima Karydas fit in?’

Tally almost winced at that understandable question and reckoned that she would never make a good liar because her sibling’s fibs about their exact relationship had already slipped her mind. ‘Oh, that was just a temporary sort of one-off thing,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘I’m actually studying interior design at college and this is my last year.’

‘I didn’t realise that you were a student.’

‘So, tell me about what you do,’ Tally urged, keen to change the subject.

Sander mentioned interests in property, pharmaceuticals and the hospitality business and confessed that he was always on the lookout for new investment possibilities. While she could only be impressed by the long hours he evidently worked and his ambition, she sensed that he was never satisfied with his achievements and wondered why not.

Accompanying him into an exquisitely renovated Georgian building with a handsome entrance foyer, she comfortably envisaged the exclusive restaurant she assumed they were heading to next, only to find herself lodged in a lift instead. ‘Where’s the restaurant?’ she prompted.

‘There isn’t one.’ Sander stood back for her to precede him out of the lift and then stuck a key in the lock of the door on the other side of the gracious landing. ‘We’re eating in …’

Discomfiture immediately gripped Tally, for she had not bargained on a private meal in the intimate setting of his home and would have preferred dining in a public place. Curiosity, however, about his chosen surroundings took her in silence through the first minutes of entering his apartment. The high-tech finish, wooden floors and understated furniture were very masculine but made the most of the classic proportions of the rooms. A dining table was already set with flickering candles in readiness for their meal and her soft pink mouth compressed.

‘I would’ve preferred to have dined out,’ she told him candidly.

Surprise at that comment made Sander elevate an ebony brow. ‘Why?’

Tally wrinkled her nose and wondered if she dared to be honest a split second before she defied the urge to play dumb for his benefit. ‘This feels like a set-up …’

‘What the hell does that mean?’ Sander frowned as a woman in an apron appeared with a pair of plates and hovered uncertainly. He addressed her in Greek, telling her to go ahead and serve the meal.

Stiff with awkwardness, Tally took a reluctant seat and unfurled her napkin.

‘Explain what you meant,’ Sander prompted drily.

The starter looked very enticing but the tension in the atmosphere had loosed a flock of uneasy butterflies in the pit of Tally’s stomach. She lifted her knife and fork with an appetite that was already on the wane. ‘You staged the meal here because you expect me to sleep with you tonight,’ she framed curtly and she glanced up, eyes as fresh a green as clover leaves after rain and sparkling with condemnation. ‘You’ve got a hell of a nerve!’

Sander had indeed expected exactly that scenario to develop and had chosen the most convenient backdrop for that desired conclusion to the evening. ‘Because I want you? Am I supposed to apologise for that?’

‘No, but …’ Tally hesitated and then pressed on to speak her mind. ‘But I’m more than just a body. I’m a person and I don’t want to be here with you if all you’re interested in is sex!’

His dark golden gaze veiled, Sander could not restrain an instinctive need to wince at her lack of tact and sophistication. He wondered what possible response she was hoping to receive at such an early stage of their acquaintance. ‘I’d like you to stay the night,’ he traded without an ounce of embarrassment. ‘That’s a natural, normal aspiration for me to have.’