A Shameful Consequence - By Carol Marinelli Page 0,20

because, unlike too many previous PAs, Nico had not bedded her. Put simply there was no attraction, just mutual liking, and as a team they worked well.

‘I’ll ring and speak with him …’

‘Well, good luck, but he’s been instructed that you can take it or leave it. If you try to bring the price down, he will refuse to take any more calls.’

His business brain instantly rejected it, but for a moment he lingered. There was need to be here and he had no reason why.

His mind flicked to Constantine.

To dangerous thoughts of long-time lovers, but he hauled himself out of that tempting space.

But what if she needed somewhere to run to if she chose to reveal all?

Nico scolded himself for the very idea.

It was a bloody expensive women’s refuge!

It would be a most fiscally unwise decision, logic warned him—he should follow his own rule, buy when the pendulum swung in the other direction, when the developer went bust or the rich and famous migrated to the next exclusive locale.

‘I’ll text you the number.’ Charlotte said, but Nico halted her before she rang off.

‘Tell him I’ll take it and get the paperwork started.’ He heard his voice disobey his brain’s orders and then snapped off his phone.

Instinct won.

And then he looked up and saw her walk into the bar with her husband and their families. And she would be his lover, Nico decided. For her, he would break his rules—would be her regular refuge. He saw the strain on her features, saw her eyes almost pleading as they met his.

How she pleaded.

Connie felt like a hostage, her family her captor, and there, most unexpectedly, was Nico and she wanted his arms, wanted not to be made love to tonight but to be held, to be shielded, to be carried down the ladder from the wreckage her family had built for her.

She watched him stand.

Watched as he lifted his hotel key and rather pointedly pocketed it, and knew now that tonight she could go there—that Nico would be there for her, that maybe what she had wished for last night was being offered: liaisons in Athens; passion and phone calls; an occasional escape to a secret life.

How much easier it would be to play along with the charade, to laugh along with her parents and later say farewell to them, to turn into her hotel suite and then, a discreet while later, knock on Nico’s door.

So badly she wanted to take the easy option—especially when it meant the sweet reward of Nico’s arms tonight—but Nico had awoken something else within her, had made her a woman in more ways than he knew, for though scared she felt stronger.

It was for that reason she left Nico waiting alone through what would prove the longest night, in a bed that had been scented by them.

CHAPTER SIX

‘I STILL can’t believe you would do this to your father.’ She’d heard it a hundred, perhaps a thousand times, and it still stung as much as it had the first time, but Connie held her head high.

‘I still can’t believe that he would have done that to me.’ She put the last of her things in her case, knew that her time here in Xanos was over for now. She had brought shame to the family—annulled the most celebrated marriage on the island—and there was no choice but to leave. The word was about to get out, the presents ready to be returned, the families confronted, the accusations and threats hurled, and through it all Connie had stayed calm, even when her father had, this very morning, collapsed with chest pain in his office and was, having been examined by the doctor, lying in his bed guarded by a nurse. When even that did not dissuade her, her mother had finally told her to get out. But now, as she tossed in a honeymoon dress that was still unworn and wrapped in unopened tissue paper, she thought of the excitement when she had bought it and she had to swallow down tears as she pulled the zipper closed on her case. The brave facade was slowly slipping.

They had been cruel in the face of her mutiny. Of course, she could make her own decisions, choose a different life—but if she lived here there were rules, and if she didn’t …

Her bank accounts had been linked to the family business. All now were closed. Her car, which had been a present, had been taken back, all her jewellery,