Greek’s Shotgun Wedding (The Diamandis Heirs #1)

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

G IGI LOOKED UP at Jace in the moonlight. His lean, hard-boned features were contemplative as the motor launch whizzed them back to the harbour. A phalanx of security staff ringed them because Jace did not like to be photographed against his will and had what struck her as an almost paranoiac need to ensure that his movements remained undocumented by the paparazzi.

Without warning, he folded both arms round her, pulling her close to the heat and solidity of his long lean length, and reaction went running through her like a crazy song rising in volume inside her. It touched every part of her. Her heart skipped a beat. Her nipples tightened almost painfully and there was a clenching low in her feminine core. Butterflies danced in her tummy. Concentration became a huge challenge.

‘We’re alone,’ he insisted, against all the evidence to the contrary.

Gigi didn’t want him to kiss her with so many men standing around, even though it was true that all of them were carefully looking in other directions. ‘This is weird,’ she hissed up at him, small hands braced and spread across his wide chest to forge some distance between them. ‘You should’ve stayed on the yacht—’

‘Didn’t want to part with you yet,’ he growled.

‘You’re seeing me in the morning,’ she reminded him unevenly, her voice slipping and slurring as she collided with his intent gaze, the greenness blacked out by the low light but the expression no less forceful.

‘You should’ve stayed on the yacht—’

‘I have pets to look after,’ she reminded him yet again, one hand sliding up off his chest onto a wide hard shoulder as she looked up him.

‘I could’ve had that handled for you—’

‘You’re like a toddler sometimes!’ she whispered in sudden frustration, leaning close to his ear. ‘If you can’t get your own way, you get angry—’

‘I’m not getting angry,’ Jace grated between evenly clenched white teeth and it was the biggest lie he had ever told, but he was damned if he was about to qualify for that demeaning ‘volatile’ label again. People who couldn’t control their emotions, like his father, who had rejected him, like his mother, who had put her love life ahead of her son, often made mistakes they couldn’t come back from. He had no plans to ever make those kinds of mistakes.

Her free hand mock-punched him on the chest. ‘ And you’re such a liar!’ she countered in another tone entirely, a forgiving tone of understanding, because she had had to fight herself to walk away from him too.

And that had shaken Gigi deep, shaken her up, shaken her inside out because she had never felt anything like the connection she felt with Jace with any other man. He felt like something in her bones, something familiar and, oh, so precious and that was exhilarating but it was also terrifying. No matter what she felt, she didn’t know him or, at least, she hadn’t known him long enough. She didn’t want to rush into anything with him. She needed to step back, take a breath and work out if it would be sensible to move forward. Her disillusionment on the family front had taught her to protect herself before she risked her heart.

‘You’re busy thinking of all the reasons why you shouldn’t be with me,’ Jace intoned knowingly in her ear as he bent his handsome dark head. ‘Why do you think I tried to keep you onboard, even in another bed?’

Even the way he said that word ‘bed’ set her alight somewhere deep down in her body and she quivered, tapped out on words of wisdom, vaguely accepting that she was on her own with no guidance or easy solution to so powerful an attraction. It was intimidating that he knew what she was thinking almost before she thought it. ‘Tomorrow,’ she told him steadily, suddenly proud that she had retained that much resistance to a male she found virtually irresistible.

‘Tomorrow,’ Jace repeated in another tone entirely, his hungry mouth claiming hers with fierce hunger, his tongue delving deep, twining with hers, and her hands gripped his forearms to steady her stance because her knees were weak. And nobody had ever kissed her the way Jace kissed her, as if ‘tomorrow’ were a hundred years away.

He drew back from her and that was when she realised that the launch had already docked and that everyone onboard was looking to Jace to issue instructions. Her face burned as though hellfire had flamed beneath her skin and she lifted her head high as Jace handed her off the craft and she stepped down onto the dock, accompanied to the car that awaited her. Jace lived in another world, totally another world from hers and one with different rules and dangers. She refused to look back at him even though she knew he was still watching her and she breathed in deep and long to regain her calm. Unfortunately, when it came to her reaction to Jace, he had the same effect on her as an explosive device thrown into a tranquil pond.

Back home, sliding into bed for what little remained of the night, she was too tired to agonise and she slept almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.

First thing, she was too busy to think about anything other than the needs of her pets and getting to work for the short surgery she offered on Saturday mornings. She worked for a charity but she didn’t get paid for Saturday mornings when she volunteered her services for those who could not afford to pay for treatment from more expensive places. Only when she was hurriedly packing a bag for the rest of her day did she allow her thoughts to stray to Jace.

About the last thing she was expecting at nine o’clock on a Saturday was a very loud rat-a-tat-tat on the front door knocker. And opening the door to find her Greek father and her four half-brothers waiting there was an even bigger shock. ‘Has something happened?’

Achilleus Georgiou stepped through the door with a thunderous expression. ‘Yes, something has happened,’ he said very drily, extending a newspaper to her like exhibit A in a murder trial.

Frowning, Gigi peered and then her face lit up pink in mortification. In spite of all Jace’s precautions, there they were in print on the launch kissing and there was another much clearer photo of her face as she stepped off the launch at the marina. Then and there, she scolded herself for assuming that Jace’s concern about the paparazzi was paranoid. Evidently someone with a long-distance telephoto lens had spotted and caught them together.

‘How did you meet him?’ one of her four half-brothers demanded, all five men standing around her looking annoyed and accusing.

‘I met him when I saved his dog from getting run over on the road outside,’ Gigi advanced quietly. ‘What’s it to you?’

‘What’s it to any of us?’ another half-brother piped up in apparent wonderment at her attitude. ‘You’re making an exhibition of yourself with a guy no decent woman would associate with!’

‘Is that so?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry to say it is,’ her father stepped in to confirm. ‘Diamandis has an appalling reputation with women but possibly you were not aware of that fact?’

Achilleus had the brass to look hopeful as he asked that question and Gigi squared her slight shoulders. ‘No. I read about his reputation online—’

‘Then why the hell—?’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘What man will want you after he’s ditched you and moved on?’

‘You’re soiling the Georgiou family name!’

As that storm of male protest was unleashed on her, Gigi stood even taller. ‘But I’m not a Georgiou. And I’m not a member of your family.’

‘You are my daughter!’ her father proclaimed.

‘You are our sister!’

Gigi reckoned that it was most unfortunate that they had never once uttered such keen sentiments over the past eighteen months when she had hung around on the edge of their family group, unaccepted, never once sought out. No, she had arranged every meeting between them all, each and every one. And many of those encounters had taken place only because Helene had still been alive and, naturally, they had wished to visit her , their sick grandmother, with whom Gigi had lived.

‘Ask your sons to leave,’ she told her father. ‘I will talk to you, nobody else.’

Her half-brothers shuffled out looking upset and angry at her apparent lack of understanding of their feelings.

‘I can see that this is an intervention,’ Gigi said quietly when she was finally alone with the older man. ‘And doubtless well intended to protect me, but I’m a woman of twenty-three years of age and an independent adult. I do as I like and I don’t wish to be in conflict with you but you have never been a father to me.’

‘I’m sorry but I was worried about you. You’re on your own. He’s a womaniser and I don’t want to see you getting hurt.’ With this little unexpected admission, Achilleus backed off a step, his weathered but still attractive face a mask of guilt and disconcertion, and her kind heart smote her because he was not a man capable, it seemed, of sharing his feelings, of admitting what had actually happened between her mother and him. Her mother had refused to talk about that as well. He was an old-school man of a different generation, but he had had months to bring himself to that point of talking about what mattered most and he still hadn’t done it, still hadn’t grasped that nettle. Yet in spite of those facts, he had still somehow decided that he had the right to come to her and criticise her conduct as though he were a true father to her. That admission that he was genuinely worried about her getting hurt, however, took the edge off her irritation. I’m sorry,’ She sighed. ‘I’m all grown now. Nobody tells me what to do. I’m single and so is Jace. If he were a married man or engaged in criminal activities, I could understand your objections, but not in these circumstances. From what I hear, he is a perfectly respectable businessman—a very rich one, I will agree, but nonetheless there’s nothing dodgy about him.’

‘For your sake, I hope that is true,’ Achilleus said anxiously. ‘But he does have an unsavoury reputation with your sex, and you have never impressed me as the kind of ambitious woman who seeks a jet-set lifestyle.’

‘I’m not but I like Jace,’ Gigi responded. ‘I’m not expecting a for ever and ever happy ending with him either, but I will continue to see him...for the present.’

Achilleus dipped his head a shade in grudging acceptance of her adult status and added very awkwardly, ‘I wish it had been possible for things to be different between us—’

Gigi flinched. ‘It could have been different but nobody made the effort,’ she pointed out ruefully.

The older man turned his head away, his discomfiture palpable, and a few minutes later he was gone, refusing a cup of coffee while ignoring the opportunity to put their relationship on a firmer, closer basis. She thought it ironic that her entire Greek family had landed on her doorstep at an early hour when they decided that she had done something wrong but that the same family had been wholly uninterested in treating her like a daughter or a sister beforehand. It hurt, but not as much as their indifference had hurt eighteen months earlier when she was still all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed optimistic about developing those relationships. In spite of that, however, she felt better for having spoken up in her own defence and laid down boundaries. She had stood up for herself, said what she had to say without apology and that could only be a sensible move.

She went into work, relieved that there was no sign she had been identified by the paparazzi as Jace’s companion. No, she was a mystery woman and, hopefully, she would remain one. That hope was crushed the instant Ioanna raced into the surgery to join her on a day that she did not usually work. ‘So, tell all!’ she vented straight off.

‘You recognised me,’ Gigi gathered with a frown.

‘It’s a very good photo. Everyone here recognised you,’ Ioanna confirmed to her dismay. ‘Someone somewhere will talk and you’ll be identified...there’s nothing surer.’

Gigi texted Jace that she would drive herself to the marina and she ignored his objections when she left the surgery, climbing into her tiny car with Hoppy and refusing to be menaced by invisible photographers out to make money out of her image. As a result she bore a closer resemblance to a bag lady than a woman Jace would date. Hair in a high ponytail, she wore sweatpants and an oversized hoodie in spite of the heat, determined to attract no attention. The launch was waiting for her and, cradling Hoppy in her arms, she climbed straight in, loving the breeze cooling her as the craft raced across the waves to the giant matt-black yacht anchored out in the bay.

She had expected to have a moment to remove her unflattering outfit before she joined Jace but she was stymied when he greeted her as she stepped off the launch.

‘What on earth are you wearing?’

Gigi dragged her dismayed gaze from his lean, powerful physique. As usual he looked the height of casual sophistication, black curls tousled, long thighs encased in fitted chinos, muscular chest covered in a T-shirt, and every time he breathed she could see his incredible pec and ab muscles expand and release. Her mouth ran dry. Only realising then that he was still awaiting her reply, she muttered, ‘It was a disguise. I’ll take it off now that I’ve arrived—’

His flaring ebony brows creased. ‘Why would you wear a disguise?’

‘Because photos were published in one of today’s newspapers showing my face and us kissing ,’ she revealed in unmistakable disgust.

Jace was taken aback by her attitude because all the young women he knew relished such appearances in print with him. He crouched down to pet Hoppy, who bounced over to him on his three legs and then wandered over to Mo to get reacquainted, not one whit nervous of the huge dog towering over him.

‘I don’t want that kind of public exposure,’ Gigi added. ‘I like my quiet anonymous life.’

Jace frowned. ‘I’m sorry. I can only control the publicity when I’m in private places. In my company there’s always a risk of photos being stolen.’

‘It’s not your fault. Let me get changed first,’ she said.

Jace’s bright green gaze arrowed down into hers. Thee mou , she was beautiful, unadorned as she was, sunlight glimmering off her streaky brown and blonde hair. She was a picture: the slender column of her neck rising from the jumbo-sized hoodie, the big blue eyes, the naturally cushiony pink lips. His groin tightened and he concentrated on having her shown into a cabin. She emerged within two minutes, disconcerting him once again with her speed. There she was clad in simple shorts and a T-shirt worn over some kind of swimwear, for he could see the straps at the neckline, and anticipation almost made his mouth water. He began wondering for the first time if it was sexier when a woman showed less skin. Certainly, it was not a female habit in his vicinity. His pool parties on the yacht almost always featured at least one naked exhibitionist and once one person stripped, others invariably followed.

‘So, what are your plans for the rest of the day?’

‘Lunch at a little taverna on a small, quiet island and bathing or sunbathing or whatever. Relaxed. I assumed you would prefer that.’ Jace hesitated. ‘Alternatively we could go shopping somewhere—’

Her delicate nose wrinkled. ‘Why would I want to go shopping? This is time off. I want to relax.’

Why would I want to go shopping?

Jace was amused by that innocent question but not at all surprised by it as he led her out onto the upper deck and ordered drinks.

Having released her hair from her ponytail, Gigi stood at the deck rail as the yacht sliced through the waves, her hair blowing back from her face. Jace slotted a moisture-beaded glass into her hand. ‘We’ll be getting off in little more than ten minutes,’ he told her. ‘You must’ve got a shock when you saw that newspaper. With hindsight, it was foolish for me to accompany you back to the harbour.’

‘I didn’t see the paper until my father and my brothers brought it to me. They were all furious,’ she revealed tightly.

‘Your father and your brothers?’ Jace repeated. ‘Are you saying that you have a family on Rhodes?’

‘Calling them family would be stretching the truth. I only met them eighteen months ago. Before that, my Greek father and my half-brothers were total strangers—’

‘You’re half Greek,’ Jace mused in surprise. ‘How come you didn’t already know them?’

Gigi winced. ‘I’m afraid I still don’t know my parents’ story. My mother was very private, and she got exasperated when I asked awkward questions, calling their brief relationship “old history”—’

‘It was your history.’

‘Yes, I thought so too,’ she agreed, folding her arms. ‘I hoped my father would fill in the blanks but it’s quite obvious that he doesn’t want to. I suppose that’s because he was married at the time with four young boys of his own. My mother was in Athens attending a conference and that’s when they met. She did tell him about me.’

‘Is it really that important to you now?’

‘After my mother died suddenly from an aneurysm, I was looking for a family connection and Rhodes was the only place to look,’ she confided with a shrug. ‘So, I found a job on the island and then phoned my father—’

‘And what was his reaction at that stage?’ Jace pressed curiously.

‘He seemed keen, he seemed pleased. Only he wasn’t so enthusiastic once I was actually here.’ Gigi sighed. ‘He said I should move in with his mother, who had space...and I did, only to discover that what she really needed was a carer, so I became a convenient lodger there for the whole of my first year here. I loved Helene and got on very well with her though. Unfortunately, Helene didn’t seem to know how her son and my mother got entangled or what the fallout was from it. My father obviously didn’t confide in her at the time and she passed away about three months ago. I’m planning to return to the UK at some stage but I don’t know when. I enjoy my work here and it’s given me good experience but...’

Jace tensed at the news that she already had plans to leave Greece. ‘Drink up...we’re here.’

Gigi was pensive for a moment, acknowledging that she was not as keen to return to the UK as she had once been. Even working out the sheer expense of putting her pets into quarantine and the distress that that would cause them left her tummy churning. Furthermore, she had left no close friends behind, indeed had little to actually return for. At least, she recalled, until her mother’s property in the UK finally sold and that last tie was cut. She drained her glass thirstily and stared up into the bright blue sky and then lower, to the rocky cliffs ringing a small unspoilt and empty beach. A haze of scrub and sturdy little trees growing out of the rock crevices clung to the steep gradient. ‘Is it a big climb?’

‘No, and you have appropriate footwear. There’s a path.’

Clutching her bag and followed by the two dogs, Gigi climbed out of the launch onto the soft sand. Jace jumped down beside her, sunglasses anchored on his nose. She took notice of the four-man-strong security team that followed them. No, Jace was never alone except in beds and bathrooms, she reflected wryly. That had to be a drag for him but possibly he had grown up with similar protection and he had got so used it, he barely even noticed his silent backup any more.

He took her to the end of the path, a hand curved to her elbow as they began to follow the zigzagging path that slowly climbed upward. ‘You’ve been here before,’ she guessed.

‘Many times, but this is the first time I’ve brought a guest. I come here when I’m in the mood for my own company. I hope you’re comfortable with rustic surroundings. The food is amazing and the views are spectacular.’

He hauled her up the last few feet and steadied her as she studied the rock terrace built right on the edge of the cliff. ‘Epic,’ she pronounced, strolling up onto it to study the view of the glimmering sea in sunshine and the yacht far below them.

A little man came out and chattered up a storm about what was on the day’s menu. Evidently, there was no written menu. Gigi sat down in the shade at a home-made table, which their host proceeded to clean and polish. A younger man delivered glasses and a jug of chilled water. The dogs lay down in the shade, Hoppy edging closer and closer to Mo, who treated him like a puppy.

Jace recommended the fish and she went with his choice. She sat back in her surprisingly comfortable chair.

Jace levelled narrowed shrewd green eyes on her tranquil face. ‘Why did your family bring that newspaper to you?’

Gigi winced. ‘Don’t ask—’

‘I’ve got to ask,’ he parried. ‘I’m assuming it relates to me in some way—’

‘According to them, no decent woman would date you—’

‘You’re the very first woman I’ve...er dated .’ Jace seemed pained by the word, his lean, devastatingly beautiful face almost sombre.

‘How is that possible with your reputation for loving and leaving women?’

‘That’s not dating, that’s sex. I don’t love them. I’ve never been in love and they know going in that I’ll be leaving them eventually,’ Jace replied drily, watching her expressive eyes as closely as a hawk in search of prey. ‘I don’t play guessing games with women. Everything is open and upfront—’

Gigi’s brain was whirling round as fast as a merry-go-round, troubled by his honesty. ‘So, what on earth are you doing with me?’ she asked, smiling at the older man as he brought bread and cheeses and a bottle of wine to the table.

‘I haven’t worked that out yet,’ Jace admitted with a compelling smile. ‘When I have, I’ll let you know. One glass?’ He lifted the wine bottle.

‘I’ll have one.’

The bread was still warm from the oven and delicious with the salty cheese. The fish was fresh and tender and it melted in her mouth. It was a lazy meal and the conversation was good as well. Jace was astonished when she admitted that she was only twenty-three years old. He understood only after she admitted that she had always been on an accelerated programme of learning at school and had in fact graduated from university with her first science degree at the age of fifteen.

‘So, nerd wasn’t an exaggeration,’ Jace quipped.

‘No, not when it came to me. I was always with older students, which meant that my social life was a dead zone because I was out of step with my peers. It’s only as I’ve got older that I’ve appreciated that it’s not in my nature to be a social whizz kid.’

‘You’re sociable enough for me,’ Jace murmured. ‘I may have the reputation of a party animal, but I think that’s the reverse side of the coin to working very long hours.’

They strolled back down the path to the beach, where a blanket had already been laid out with a drinks cooler. His life was smoothed and polished by great wealth and the wheels were greased by his many staff. Gigi shed her shorts and her T-shirt and then felt suddenly, unusually self-conscious. There was nothing daring about her halter neck denim-blue bikini, little cleavage and very little of her derriere on show. In fact, she owned more revealing underwear than what she wore to swim. But for all that, somehow Jace was contriving to look at her as though she were stark naked and in possession of one of those spectacular cover-girl figures that always captured male attention. Turning pink, she walked into the water and within minutes she was swimming, fast and strong and confident, the way she had been taught, but her mind was utterly focused on Jace.

That wasn’t like her. As a rule, she was only serious about work. Her profession was her life and it gave her confidence. Her job was a vocation and she loved the animals she worked to help. She had had to be strong to succeed so young in her chosen field and, in many ways, it had validated the choices her mother had censured her for making.

Jace, however, was showing her that she had more layers of mental and physical response than she had ever believed. He kissed her and the world fell away and that sounded like an adolescent’s dream, but it had truly happened that way. For the first time she had wanted a man. And Jace might be the wrong man in terms of a future, but, in reality, did she want a serious future either? She was twenty-three years old and hers had been a relatively sheltered life in terms of the opposite sex. She was just finding her feet in the world. She didn’t want to be tied down, married or someone’s partner. Her job was her world. She loved it. So, sex with the right guy was finally on the table and justifiable. Why deny herself what she wanted when a guy as uninterested in commitment as she was magically appeared in front of her? Yes, he was magic, she reflected dizzily.

She was an excellent swimmer into the bargain, Jace noted without surprise. Mo was sitting just above the tide line, Hoppy beside him whining, both dogs anxiously awaiting her return. Jace was thoroughly abstracted after that view of Gigi in her faded old bikini that concealed far more than it revealed. But her shape was...divine. Perky little breasts, tiny waist, a bottom as shapely as a sun-warmed peach. He had wanted to put his hands on her so badly he had dug them into the sand to prevent himself from making the wrong move. Since when had he behaved that way? Self-denial didn’t come naturally to Jace Diamandis, any more than being serious about a woman.

He didn’t do that emotional stuff. And that was what she wanted. She might not have said so but he could read between the lines. But emotions would blunt his killer edge in business, soften him, weaken him. He had learned one hard lesson from his chequered childhood: don’t fall in love . Argus Diamandis had fallen madly in love with Alessia Rossi, Jace’s mother, the famous Italian opera singer, and he’d been jealous, possessive and obsessional about her. He might have remarried but even Evander, who had thoroughly disliked his eldest brother, had conceded that Argus had never recovered from Alessia’s desertion or her death. And the aftermath of an obsessional love of that nature going wrong was often the very reverse of love, as Jace had learned as a child when he had been rejected by his father. Love like that was like a dangerous thread of instability in a man’s character and the very idea of it creeped Jace out.

His grandfather’s bête noire had been Electra Pappas, an heiress, who had put him through hell with her tantrums and flirtations. Yet even knowing her inclinations, his grandfather had married her, only for the marriage to crash into divorce within months. Ten years later, the couple had remarried, and Electra was now Jace’s highly respected, widowed grandmother, soon to make her eightieth birthday. So, his grandfather had been obsessional too when it came to that one woman. A chill filtered down Jace’s taut spinal cord. He wasn’t about to follow in his predecessors’ footsteps. He should be holding Gigi at a distance, looking for casual, replaceable, easy , not toeing the line for some woman who couldn’t even be bothered buying a new bikini for his benefit!

At that moment, Gigi walked out of the water, casually wringing the salt water from her long hair with her hands. And Jace took one look at her, that shapely body streaming with water, that pouting pink mouth smiling, and he vaulted upright instantaneously. A siren singing on some rocky outcrop could not have yanked a stronger response from a sex-starved sailor, he conceded grimly.

‘My goodness...you look very serious,’ Gigi remarked, dropping down to her slender knees on the blanket and reaching for a towel.

Towering over her in swim shorts, even though he wasn’t smiling, Jace looked drop-dead, lethally and heart-stoppingly gorgeous and sexy.

Jace gazed down into those cornflower-blue eyes and crouched down to her level. His big hands carefully framed her cheekbones and he leant forward slowly to kiss her.

‘We can be seen by your security—’ she gasped.

‘Don’t care.’

And he kissed her and it was everything, a sweet vein of sensual delight that tunnelled straight down to her feminine core. Her thighs strained together, seeking to quiet the burn of response. He tugged her to him with strong greedy hands and as she overbalanced down onto his lap she could not have missed registering how aroused he was. ‘Jace—’

‘I need to go into the water to cool down...or go back to the yacht.’ It was the essential Jace, cool, straight, unapologetic. But there was nothing cool about the fire in the compelling emerald-green eyes trained on her for an answer.

‘Yacht,’ Gigi almost whispered, almost unnerved by her own daring.

Gigi glimpsed the flash of surprise he couldn’t hide and a deep flush scored her cheeks. Jace dug out his phone, spoke not quite levelly into it and then walked out into the water anyway, grinning back at her with sudden scorching appreciation.