Bride by Day

She could believe it.

“Well, that’s easy. For one, I’ve always wished I had enough money to give every deserving, struggling artist at the university a free stipend so he only had to work at one job instead of two or three, in order to afford college.”

“Done,” came the pronouncement, as if from on high. “Since I’d already planned to purchase your art project and have it hung in a place of honor in the foyer of my building, I’ll contact Dr. Giddings and establish a perpetual fund in your name which he can administer to needy, deserving art students.”

The idea that he planned to buy her collage and put it on display almost made her plate of food fall off her lap onto the couch. But to think what such a monetary gift would mean to impoverished students...

“You’d really do that?” Sam cried out in unabashed astonishment.

“What’s your second wish?” he continued in the same vein, completely ignoring her outburst.

He was sitting on the rickety chair he’d carried from the corner and placed opposite the couch, calmly finishing a second helping of lamb.

Her second wish. It was really her first, but at his suggestion, she’d wanted to propose the most outrageous demand she could think of.

Just remembering her hard working, courageous mother made her eyes cloud over. She bit her lip to put a brake on her emotions.

“When Mom died, I didn’t have the money to fly her to Cheyenne, Wyoming. She was born there and ought to have been buried in the family plot. I designed a headstone I wanted to have erected to her memory, but it was too costly to have made.”

“Done,” he came back again in a low, solemn tone. “Remember that you only have one more wish. It must be something you want for yourself.”

Her third wish.

Sam eyed him covertly. This was only a game.

She had no intention of acting on any of it.

“To have the time and luxury to create beautiful designs for cloth, ceramic tiles and fine-boned china which other people will clamor to buy.”

“Done.”

In a lithe move, he rose to his full height and relieved her of the food she’d barely tasted.

He took everything to the sink, then said over his broad shoulder, “At my villa on Serifos, there’s a whole wing you can devote to your work. Cottage industries in the Cyclades have always been the secret of my financial success.

“Frankly, it’s been many years since I’ve seen designs and patterns as fresh and exciting as yours. Through my marketing experts, you’ll make a small fortune. By the time I’ve granted you your freedom, you’ll be launched and successful, and you’ll never have another money worry again.”

While she sat there in a complete stupor, he suddenly turned and gave her his undivided attention. “I sense there’s a fourth. Tonight I’m in a benevolent-enough mood to indulge your slightest whim.”

He wanted protection from his fiancée at any cost, even to binding himself to a temporary wife he didn’t love.

All along, Sam had been right about him. He had remarkable sensitivity and a superior intellect which could ferret out a person’s most closely guarded secrets without even trying. His perception was positively scary.

Deep, deep down inside that core of her being, she’d been waiting for the day when she shouted at her father that she and her mother had made an even greater success of their lives than he had-without his acknowledgment or help—then walk proudly away and never look back.

Perseus Kostopoulos was the only god-like mortal who could actually help her achieve that dream before she was old and gray—and somehow he knew it, even if she hadn’t told him the particulars.

“I—I don’t know.” She tried to sound unaffected, but was failing miserably. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“Do that. I’ll be back at ten tonight.” He took her door key from the kitchen counter and let himself out of the apartment without waiting for a response.

What a clever man to leave her alone so she could contemplate the rest of her life without him.

Before she’d left her apartment earlier in the day to make the walk to his office in the rain, she’d given little thought to a love interest in her life because she’d been too busy getting ready to graduate, too busy to start making her way in the world.

That was before she’d met Perseus Kostopoulos.

Now his stamp was all over her lonely, claustrophobic apartment, from the bedroom to the kitchen sink.

She eyed the gauze bandage wrapped around her hand, evidence of the care she’d received from his own, personal doctor. Her arm ached from the tetanus shot she’d been given, further evidence of that concern.

Sumptuous Greek food he’d had specially prepared for her still sat on the plate waiting to be eaten. Her violated collage, one he planned to buy and place in his office building for the whole world to see, sat propped on the card table, expertly repaired by his capable hands.

Strong, masculine hands which had caught hers to stop the bleeding. Hands she secretly longed to feel in her hair, on her body. Until now, she’d never had such an erotic thought in her life.

It came to her like a revelation that she had fallen in love with Perseus on sight. She didn’t care what other people would say about such an absurd, ridiculous statement only hours after having met him.

She couldn’t help it. Something told her that if she couldn’t have his love, body and soul, for the rest of her life, then she wouldn’t want any other man’s.

Her mother had said the same thing about her father. She’d loved Jules Gregory from the moment she’d first laid eyes on him. Like mother, like daughter.

Since the possibility of Perseus returning her love was nonexistent, could she be content with the proverbial half loaf?

At least she’d have a chance to be close to him for as long as he allowed it. Maybe he’d need to keep her at his side for a long, long time. Long enough to thwart his fiancée. Long enough for him to turn to Sa—

Stop it, Sam. You’re being delusional.

If you agree to his proposal, you can never let him know the real reason why you’re willing to enter into something which can only cause yourself pain and heartache in the end.

The problem was, she was already experiencing those searing emotions, and he’d only been gone twenty minutes. She couldn’t abide the thought of his never coming back...

Though she tried to stay busy straightening her apartment, and still keep her injured hand raised, the next hour passed with agonizing slowness.

By five after ten, she’d worked herself up to a crisis state thinking that maybe he wasn’t going to come back, that he’d only been playing with her emotions as final punishment for removing the note from his office in the first place.