A Shameful Consequence (2 page)

He made his way into the church and chose to sit quietly at the back rather than join his parents, for the bride had reached her soon-to-be husband. He noted the lack of response from Stavros: there was no smile of appreciation; no eyes that looked in wonder. Nico thought,
Had she been his …
And then he stopped that thought process with a wry smile, for Nico did not believe in love, could not imagine spending his life with only one other. His relationships were short-lived at best, a night most times.

Her name was Constantine, he heard from the priest, and it suited her, Nico thought.

He’d forgotten how long Greek weddings took—he stood and sat on demand during the service of the betrothal and he toyed with just slipping away unnoticed and heading for a bar before the crowning. The priest blessed the rings and asked Constantine if she was willing. Nico saw the candle she was holding flicker in her shaking hands, and truly he wanted to walk over and
blow it out. He could feel her dangerous hesitation and willed her to listen to it.

For he knew she was more than this.

More than the stifling laws and traditions he had walked away from.

A place where appearance was everything, where there could be no debate, no expansion, no change.

Connie wondered, as she had wondered so many times, if there was more than this, heard the priest repeat the question, ask if she was willing, and again she wanted to run. Wanted to turn her head to the congregation, to see if those eyes would be waiting, and told herself she was being ridiculous.

This was the day she had been raised for; this was how her life was to be. Who was she to question her father, the traditions she had been born to? Finally she nodded, mumbled that she was willing, and almost heard the door close on all her secret dreams.

It did close, for on hearing that Nico moved from his pew and walked out of the church.

He went to a taverna that was waiting and ordered strong coffee and then thanked the bartender when he brought out an ouzo, too. Normally he did not drink it, it was too sickly and sweet for him, but the taste of anise on his lips and the burn as it hit his stomach had Nico order another. He stared out at a town that was somehow familiar—the dusty busy streets and colourful market, the bustle and chatter as a crowd of locals started to gather outside the church, waiting for the couple to appear. Nico pulled out his phone, was about
to tell Charlotte to book him a suite on the south of the island—he would say hello to his parents and then get out—but it wasn’t out of consideration to his PA that he put away his phone. Instead, he wanted to be here, Nico realised, wanted to sit in the café in the town square and soak in the afternoon sun. He liked the scent from the taverna and the variance in dialect here on Xanos that hummed in the background. As the newly wed couple appeared on the steps, Nico walked to the hotel and informed them of his arrival, saw the nervous swallow from the concierge, because certainly this man would expect the best.

‘I will be joining the wedding,’ Nico also informed him. ‘Nico Eliades. I will sit with my parents.’ He did not ask whether that could be arranged, neither did he apologise. Nico expected and always got a yes.

‘Nico!’ His mother seemed shocked to see him as he joined them at the table. ‘Why are you here?’

‘Some greeting,’ Nico said. ‘Normally you plead with me to attend these sort of functions.’

‘Of course …’ She gave a nervous smile, her eyes desperately searching the room for her husband who, seeing Nico, strode over immediately.

‘This is a pleasant surprise.’

‘Really?’ Nico said, because his father’s eyes said otherwise. ‘You don’t seem to pleased to see me.’

‘It’s not the sort of thing you are used to.’ His mother said. ‘The hotel is shabby …’ His mother was an unbearable snob. It was a gorgeous old hotel and far from shabby. It had character and charm, two things, in his
parents, that were lacking. ‘Dimitri is mortified to hold the reception here. The sooner they get this girl back to Lathira where we can have a proper celebration, the happier we will all be. Really, Nico.’ She gave him a saccharine smile. ‘This place is not for you.’

‘Well, I’m here now.’ Nico shrugged, his words dripping with sarcasm when they came. ‘What could be nicer than spending a day with my family?’

He ate, and sat bored through the speeches, deciding it had been foolish to come.

Women flirted.

Beautiful, gorgeous women. One in particular was to his usual taste and how easy it would be to take a bottle of champagne from a table, take her by the hand and go up to his room. Yet he glanced at Constantine as she danced with her husband, and silently felt regret, for she had spoilt his appetite for silicone tonight. All Nico could think was, Lucky Stavros.

It was the first time he had felt even a hint of envy toward Stavros.

The son of his father’s business rival and competitive friend, always the children had been compared.

Always Nico had won.

Except on duty.

Nico had not gone into the family business—he had chosen to go alone. At eighteen, to the protests of his family, he had headed for the mainland, worked as a junior in banking and then, when still that had not satisfied, he’d headed to America. He had faked a better résumé, and how impressed they had been with
the young Greek man who could read the stockmarket. How painstaking building his own portfolio had first been, but then, with passion and determination, he had scanned global markets, invested in properties when prices had crashed, sold them when the pendulum swung back.

It always did.

How easily Nico saw that. Could not understand how others could not, for they sweated and panicked and sometimes jumped, where Nico sat calm, watching and waiting for new growth in the fertile ashes.

Each visit back home he returned richer and, despite the fights in private, his father was proud that always his son was better.

It would, though, Nico decided, be hard to match the rare beauty of Stavros’s bride.

Poor thing.

The thought jumped uninvited to the forefront of his mind as he watched her dance, not with her husband but to the tune of tradition. He watched her vie for her husband’s attention, but he was too busy talking with his
koumbaros,
irritated when she tapped him on the shoulder and told him they must now dance. He watched as Stavros ran his hand down her bottom and then said something into her ear.

And then he saw her pull away.

A flash of hurt, anger perhaps, in her eyes and Nico knew it had not been a compliment that had come from Stavros’s lips.

He was sure, because that was the way on Lathira,
as Constantine would soon find out, that even on her wedding night she had been criticised.

It was death by a thousand cuts, the world she had entered, and he had just witnessed the first.

She would be part of Lathira’s social set—have lunch with the other trophy wives and then back to the gym the following morning to pay for it. They would seep the life from her till she was as polished and as hard as the rest, and Nico did not want to sit and witness even a moment of it. It had been a mistake to come. Nico did not do sentiment, did not enjoy weddings. All they did was cause a vague bewilderment—to share your life, your future, to entrust yourself to another?

He looked at the bride, who was not blushing but pale and visibly stressed, at his parents, who sat tense, at the couples that forced smiles and conversation, and he searched for something that might discount his theory that love did not exist. He looked around the room and there were two boys, raiding the table, laughing as they ordered cola from the waiters. Two brothers causing mischief, and he felt a twist in his soul that came from nowhere he could place.

‘I’m going to retire.’ He waited for the protest from his parents but the only protest he got was from the blonde whose name he couldn’t for the life of him remember.

‘Will we see you in the morning?’

‘Perhaps.’ Nico shrugged. ‘Or I may leave early.’

‘Come and see us on Lathira soon,’ his mother said. ‘It has been ages.’

‘I’m here now,’ Nico pointed out, because this visit had to count as one, for he would not be back for months now.

He wished he loved them.

As he walked out of the ballroom, Nico wished he was blind to their faults, but all he saw were greedy, ego-driven people.

He collected his room keys, was advised that his things were in his room, but instead of heading up there on a whim he turned and headed out to the streets.

Past the church and the taverna, along the road to the fishing boats and the fishermen who sat smoking and drinking on the beach. He followed a path that should not be familiar except he seemed to know where it led, and he walked, somehow at ease with the seamier side of town, past the late-night bars to the street that forked into cobbled alleys. He could hear breathing behind him and heavy footsteps but Nico felt no fear.

He saw the tired face of a hooker and the voice of a man behind him.

‘How much?’

He saw her face shutter as she named her price and Nico felt his heart still.

He looked down the alley to where she would take the man and he heard the words repeat in his head.

How much?

He felt dread, for the first time he felt dread and broke the conversation.

‘She’s already booked.’ He turned to the bloated,
greedy face and told him she was taken. All he did was shrug and move on.

‘Since when?’ The hooker sneered.

He did not want her, but he didn’t want that man for her, either.

‘Go home,’ Nico said, and she swore at him in Greek, told him she was sick of do-gooders. Then her tirade stopped as he paid her plenty.

‘What are you paying me for?’

‘For peace,’ Nico said, even if he did not understand his own response. He just wanted to stop the trade, to wipe out one injustice.

He walked the streets; he ran through the streets like a madman; the town clock chimed and he realised it was two a.m. He wanted away from this place and how it made him feel. He would be gone first thing in the morning, would go now to his room and order their best bottle of brandy, not the sickly ouzo that churned in his stomach still.

He walked briskly through the hotel foyer, bypassed the lift and took the stairs, two, three at a time, and when nothing could have halted him, something did.

A bride still in her dress, a half-drunk bottle in one hand, a crumpled heap on the stairs, crying.

‘Leave me,’ she sobbed, and he wanted to, did not want to sit on the stairs and ask her what was wrong, for he already knew.

Did not want to sit and tell her to hush, to dry her tears and to tell her to go back there, as his father would expect him to.

He did neither.

He took her by the hand and made her stand.

Felt her hot hand in his and he wanted all of her, wanted to hold her, to stop the tears, to comfort her.

‘Leave me,’ she begged. ‘I’ll be okay in a moment.’

She wouldn’t be, Nico knew that. The champagne might dim her pain enough to send her back, but no doubt she’d need it again tomorrow, and another night and another … to get through the hell that would be her marriage, because Nico knew the truth.

‘Come with me.’ He took her by the hand and he led her.

‘Come with me to my room.’

‘H
E’S GAY.’

He hadn’t even got her through the door before she blurted it out, and Nico was surprised and rather proud that she did.

HAT she admitted what, after this night, she must never again say to another.

‘Why,’ was Nico’s only response to the revelation as he turned the lights on in his room and saw it for the first time, ‘have I been given the bridal suite?’

Tear-filled eyes looked around and she let out a slightly hysterical laugh—this, the room she had chosen when her father had booked the hotel, this, the room she had later envisaged being part of a magical night.

#X2018;Stavros changed the booking. He said that he wanted the two-bedroom suite. I thought it was so I could get ready away from him, instead he and his
koumbaros …
’ She was wretched in her grief, the sobs getting louder, and he went to the bathroom and came out with a wad of tissues.

Nico could not help but give a wry smile as he looked
around. The maids must have assumed it was being used as the bridal suite and prepared the wrong room for the
happy
couple, for there were candles that had long since gone out, and petals on the bed, a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. The ice had melted and was now water.

‘When did you find out?’ Nico asked, wincing on her behalf when she answered.

‘Just before. When we got back to the room, when still he would not kiss me, when I begged … he told me …’ Constantine sobbed. ‘He even laughed that I hadn’t worked it out, that I hadn’t questioned why he never seemed to want me. I thought it was out of respect for this night.’

‘You had no idea?’ He had assumed she knew, that that was the reason for her hesitancy at the church. That she was going along with things, as so many others on the islands did.

‘I thought things would be different after the wedding.’ She still sobbed. ‘That he was nervous of my father … men always are. I knew I didn’t yet love him, but I thought it might grow, that we’d make it work.’ She was so, so humiliated, so embarrassed. The kisses she had pressed on her new husband seemed to have repulsed him. She switched from shamed to furious. ‘I’ll take a lover,’ she said defiantly, and Nico just stood there. ‘I’ll take ten!’ And Nico suppressed a smile, but when the tears came again he saw the real depth of her grief, heard firsthand what was really distressing this beautiful bride.

‘He knew.’ She sobbed. ‘My father knew. Why would he agree to that? He could have chosen better for me—he’s a prominent man, he’s the island’s lawyer, surely I am worth more than this? I believed him when he said that this was the best choice for me, that other ways end in divorce. I trusted him to make the best choice for me. Why would he choose for his daughter a man who could never love me?’

Nico was quite sure he could hazard an accurate guess.

By local standards this had been a lavish wedding. Clearly her father was one of the island’s wealthy—but how could a lawyer get rich when the people he served were poor? The celebrities in the south had their own legal teams, they would never choose the services of a local. Nico knew how things worked on Lathira, knew from his own family the lengths they would go to to get that next deal—it was why he wanted no part of it. He was sure it was no different here on Xanos. He could smell the corruption yet Constantine seemed to have no idea, and suddenly she was back to scared.

‘I shouldn’t have said anything about it to you.’ Panic flared in her eyes as she realised who she was confiding in. “If Dimitri found out that your father knew about Stavros … Oh, God …’ she whimpered. ‘He’s the one Dimitri always wants to impress …’

‘Constantine. Your secret is safe.’ His voice was clear and commanding, his words unwavering. So badly she wanted to believe in him, but surely she could not trust him. After all, he didn’t even know her name.

‘It’s Connie,’ she said. ‘People I know call me Connie.’

‘And if you knew me, then you would know that I do not speak with my father, other than about the food on the table or the temperature of the air. We do not speak of things.’

‘You might now …’

‘No,’ Nico said. ‘No.’ He said it again, and it was up to her whether or not she believed him. ‘I will say nothing,’ Nico said. ‘One day you might choose to, though.’

Her eyes jerked to his and she glimpsed that possibility.

Maybe when her father was gone, she could end this hell, but there was still her mother, her family, the reputation they lived and died by, and she simply could not do it to them, though Nico did not leave it there.

‘I do know how hard it can be.’

She shot him a disbelieving look. She couldn’t imagine anyone even attempting to put pressure on this strong, assertive man and getting away with it, but when he spoke next she realised that he just might understand.

‘When I grew up, it was a given that I would go into the family business. That I would live in a house a few minutes away with my wife and children, that the family would sit together to eat at night and weekends. My first son would be named Vasos after my father.’ She nibbled on her lower lip, his words painting her future, for even as Stavros had broken the news, he had told her that there would be children, that their first son would
be named Dimitri. ‘I broke away. I have made my own business. I come home now and then but always it is to a row. I have no interest in marriage, and—’ his voice was definite ‘—I certainly never want children. It causes fights with my parents even to this day. I am their only son, their only child, and, as they tell me at every given chance, I am a bitter disappointment to them.’

She looked up at him and truly wondered how he could possibly disappoint. She had heard the envy in Dimitri’s voice when he’d spoken of the Eliades and their rich and successful son, but from the way Nico was talking, the pressure from home was exactly the same for him. Yes, maybe he did understand all she was going through, maybe he did know how impossible it was for her.

‘I’m an only child, too …’ Connie said, her voice faltering because she had never really discussed such things, but he nodded with understanding and tentatively she carried on. ‘So much is expected from me. So much of their happiness hinges on me.’

‘When you are in it,’ Nico explained, ‘you cannot judge it, you just know that something is wrong. When you break away …’ She closed her eyes because there was no chance of that, but Nico spoke on. ‘When you clearly see all you have to sacrifice to make them happy, maybe you will choose to be happy for yourself.’

‘Some sacrifice.’ She tried to be brave, to look at the bright side. ‘I will be living in Lathira, in a beautiful home, entertaining …’

‘The perfect wife,’ Nico interrupted. ‘You will lunch
with your friends, dressed in your secret … A woman, a wife, perhaps even a mother … ‘And she started to cry a little, because he was right, it had all been worked out.

‘Stavros said that we will have children, that there are ways for me to get pregnant without …’ She choked rather than say ‘without touching me’ but Nico heard every unspoken word and could happily have crossed the corridor and thumped Stavros and then her father, too, for all they would so readily deny her. Of course there were ways for her to have children, to play perfect—he could see her future, could picture it, because so many people here lived mired in their secrets. He looked into her eyes and found out that they were, in fact, the darkest of blue and surely she deserved better. He wanted her to see she could have so much more than the life she was being forced into.

‘When you join your new friends at the gym, when you shop with them and you try on a dress and they tell you that you look beautiful, that if you buy that dress then Stavros will not be able to keep his hands off you …’ He saw tears fill her eyes again and perhaps he should stop, but this would be her truth. ‘Will you be able to admit to these so called friends that not once has he touched you?’

‘Please stop.’

‘Tonight you danced … What did he say that upset you?’

She didn’t answer and Nico walked over, and she wrapped her arms around her body as if to cover it.

‘What did he say?’ Nico quietly demanded, and she moved her hands down to her hips.

‘That this …’ she clutched her figure ‘ … could be improved.’

‘Tell him he is never to speak to you that way and mean it,’ Nico said, but as he looked at her he changed his mind, for surely she should not stay. ‘Tell him that you won’t live like this.’

‘I cannot.’

‘You could get an annulment.’ She screwed her face up at the impossibility, just too embedded in the ways of the island to take such a step. It wasn’t his job to save her, it wasn’t his place to insist she be strong, for after all he would be gone from Xanos in the morning.

‘Then you do your best to survive your life.’ Nico gave a half-smile as he left her to it—it was not for him to persuade her otherwise. ‘Take your lover.’ He gave a shrug. ‘Take ten.’

‘I can’t …’ She closed her eyes in dread. ‘What if he were not discreet, what if people found out …?’

‘You care too much what others think.’

And then she cried, different tears now, not angry, or bitter, but she cried for all that would be denied to her, for a loveless, sexless future and all the hope she had pinned on this night. Her grief so deep, her pain so real it could not help but move him. He went over to the chair and wrapped her in his arms. He thought he would comfort her; he was unsure of his motives, but the feel of arms around her, the scent of him close and all she had suffered tonight had her mouth move to his. He felt her
clumsy, desperate kiss on his lips and closed his eyes, not in passion but restraint.

He moved his mouth away, pulled his head back and heard her sob. He realised he had added to her humiliation as he did to her what Stavros must have done, so very many times.

He looked down at her hands, which were shaking in her lap.

‘Where is your ring?’

‘I threw it at him,’ she said. ‘I’m never putting it back on.’ And then he saw a tear slide out of her eye at the hopelessness of it all, for tomorrow, he was quite sure, it would be on. She would do her duty, to everyone but herself.

‘I’ll go back.’ She went to stand but her legs woud not obey and for a moment she sat. ‘Thank you.’ She gave a very wan smile. ‘Thank you for talking to me, thank you for your kind words, and I apologise for suggesting you might gossip …’

‘I am discreet.’

‘Thank you.’ She took a deep breath, as one would when preparing to dive into cold water. ‘I’d better go back.’

‘I meant …’ He should just let her go, it was no business of his, but the thought of her going back to lie in a bed alone, of Constantine crying herself to sleep, of all her wants unfulfilled, moved Nico when usually sob stories did not. ‘You said you were worried a lover may not be …’

Hope flared inside her and he must have seen it,
because instantly he quashed it. ‘I will not be your long-time lover, I am no one’s escape …’ He saw her eyes shutter. ‘But I will be with you tonight.’

‘Just tonight?’ She wanted more than that: she wanted weekends in Athens and discreet meetings in hotels and phone calls and all the passion that had been denied. She wanted so much more than one night with him.

‘Only tonight.’ He looked at her, his eyes roamed the body he had been thinking about for hours now, the virgin bride, who would stay that way if not for him. ‘You come to my bed, I will show you what your husband denies you—all you miss out on if you choose to live this lie …’

‘I have no choice.’

‘Always we have choices,’ Nico said, and this was his—to choose not to examine his feelings tonight. His mind was black and here was light. The streets of Xanos had unsettled him, stirred emotions that he sorely wanted gone. He wanted diversion and here it had been delivered to him in the shape of a tear-streaked, beautiful virgin.

He stood and she took his hand and did the same. She stared at the room and it was the wedding night of her dreams—just the wrong man. Then she looked again, because if she was completely honest, dangerously, guiltily honest, Stavros would never have fulfilled that fantasy. Here now before her
was
the man of dreams, and he could be hers—but only for one night.