layers that framed her face then her shoulders. In the picture, her grey eyes were laughing at something outside of the picture frame, but her smile struck something inside of him. Her smile made him want to grin, something he rarely did. It was good that she was Greek, living right here in Athens were a great deal of his current business was headquartered. That would make things more convenient he thought.
“This one,” he said and tossed the file of the grey eyed woman into the middle of the table. “You’ll arrange it?” he asked as he stood up, but it wasn’t really a question since he was sure the woman he had hired to find him an acceptable wife would follow his instructions regardless if they were presented as a question. She understood the implied command.
By the time he reached his next meeting, the thought of his upcoming nuptials was already out of his mind. Although he was perfectly agreeable to pay for the wedding, he expected his soon to be fiancée to plan the event without his involvement. He would introduce her to his extremely efficient secretary with instructions to work in the date of ceremony between his already scheduled business meetings.
As he sat down and opened the report on his next discussion, it occurred to him that he probably should have gotten the name of the woman he was going to marry.
Regardless, he had confidence that Joan would deliver a copy of the entire file to his secretary so that he could review the details at a more convenient time.
Chapter 2
Eva Fontini slipped into the satin dress, zipping up the side, then efficiently pulled her hair into an elegant twist at the back of her head, smoothing out the stray curls that defied her fingers. The sapphire blue dress skimmed along her figure, not being too obvious but giving a hint of what might be beneath.
She put on a bit of lipstick, a touch of mascara and then, just because she’d had a busy week, she dabbed some concealer under her eyes to hide the dark circles.
She glanced at her watch and sighed. “Only three hours,” she told herself. In three hours, she’d be free to escape her parents’ party and she could be alone once again. Alone to work on her novel in peace and solitude. And secrecy. She also had some lesson plans to develop, her apartment to clean and several loads of laundry to wash. A party tonight was really the last place she wanted to be, but her parents had requested her presence here tonight so she’d come. Hopefully the evening wouldn’t be too terrible.
As she heard the doorbell ring, indicating the first guests were starting to arrive, she quickly went down the stairs, stepping into place beside her parents just as the servant opened the heavy front door. In another twenty minutes, the dinner party was in full swing with only one person missing. Eva looked around, wondering why she needed to be here tonight. This wasn’t normally her type of party, and her parents had long since stopped requesting her presence at these functions.
Her father had been firm about her attending though, so she’d acquiesced and donned her party shoes. Shoes that were already hurting her feet and she was wishing she could slip on her sneakers before heading to her own apartment tonight.
As the arriving guests dwindled, Eva was free to move about the room. She smiled and greeted each of the guests as she passed, but she wasn’t really interested in talking with any of them. They were friends of her parents and she didn’t feel as if she had anything in common with them.
“You look lovely,” her mother said as she walked through the living room, patting Eva’s shoulder. “Why don’t you have a drink?”
Eva glanced down at her glass filled with seltzer water and lime. “I already have a drink,” she said, biting her tongue with impatience. Her mother lived in a different world. One that alternated between valium and alcohol with sporadic cups of coffee to remain awake. That was not a state in which Eva wanted to exist. As she glanced at her mother’s eyes, she noted the slightly glazed look and knew that her mother had already taken something to ease the tension of the evening. Something in addition to the glass of wine in her hands that was now half empty.
“Nonsense dear. A glass of seltzer water isn’t a drink, it’s a waste