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

Chapter Six

CHAPTER SIX

‘I SN ’ T THERE ?’ Gigi spun back to look at Jace, still busy tugging her hair out from below the T-shirt, an arc of colour now enhancing her cheekbones. ‘If you don’t get the answer you want, you persist . You can’t deal with a negative answer when you want agreement. It makes me wonder what you’re doing with me,’ she admitted frankly. ‘I’m not a dress-up doll, Jace. I’m not a yes-girl either. I am who I am and proud of it. I’m not going to a party to pretend to be someone I’m not because you would prefer a glitzier version of me than you actually have!’

‘That’s not what I said. I am happy with you as you are—’

‘No, you’d prefer an improved edition and sorry, but you’re stuck with me!’ she countered angrily.

‘Where are you going?’ Jace demanded as she reached for the door handle.

‘To find another bed. One that’s empty. Did you pack any of my things?’ she asked flatly.

Jace indicated a door. ‘In the dressing room.’

Gigi stalked into the dressing room and opened doors. Locating her rucksack, which had already been unpacked, she filled it again.

Wearing only a pair of black boxers, Jace lodged in the doorway. ‘I don’t want you to leave—’

Gigi gritted her teeth. ‘You make me madder than anyone I’ve ever met!’

‘Your temper is almost as bad as mine, just slower to rise,’ Jace commented. ‘Stay with me. I shouldn’t have put on the pressure. I should’ve quit while I was ahead—’

Gigi groaned. ‘It’s too late at night for all this drama—’

‘Drama was something I didn’t do until I met you,’ Jace admitted and a sudden sizzling smile lightened his expressive mouth while he carefully reminded himself that Gigi was only a temporary presence in his life. ‘Lesson one, in a relationship listen to the other party. Lesson two, don’t assume orgasms grant you a get-out-of-jail-free card. Lesson three, don’t rile Gigi after midnight or she turns into a gremlin.’

An involuntary laugh escaped Gigi. She tapped a forefinger on his bare chest. ‘No diamonds. We will get by fine without diamonds.’

Jace had already decided to get on his phone and find something that would be more acceptable to her than jewels, something that would make her smile, as she was smiling right now at him and it felt like liquid sunshine warming his skin. ‘I’ll have to make some calls early tomorrow—’

‘It’s already today and I haven’t got a gift for your grandmother. I need a card, maybe some flowers—’

‘I’ll organise it.’

Gigi breathed in slow and deep and smiled again. What did he do to her? One minute she was raging and the next she was laughing. He had great charm when he wished to utilise it. Why did she feel as if she had known Jace for years? Where had the normal stranger barriers gone? She stuffed her rucksack back in the dressing room and undressed again to go for a shower.

The next morning, Gigi pulled on cool cotton trousers and a T-shirt. She wouldn’t risk putting on the fancy blue dress until it was time to leave for the party. She was relieved that she hadn’t worn it the night before.

Every tiny movement tugged on muscles somewhere inside her body and once or twice she winced and frowned, reminded more than she liked about the long, bold, brazen night that she had spent with Jace. Jace was like a wicked genie freed from a bottle. Every time he touched her, it was as though he bespelled her. A kiss, a fleeting caress and she was his again. She had never dreamt that she could want any man the way he made her want him and she didn’t like that lack of control, that lack of true choice. It was as though her free will had been stolen from her. She had assumed that that intense sexual hunger would fade once satisfied but what did it mean when that didn’t happen?

It was unsettling. Jace was supposed to be a fling, an experience, an affair and nothing more, wasn’t he? She didn’t want to get hurt, she didn’t want things between them to turn messy, no, once the party was over, she wanted her life back the way it had been.

But how could she truly say that she wanted that? If she was honest, she had got lonely, living her independent life while stuck in her safe routine. Jace had splashed colour into her world, brought her alive and only now was she recognising just how much she had stubbornly denied herself.

‘Breakfast is waiting,’ Jace called through the sliding doors that opened onto the terrace.

Breathing in deep, Gigi braced herself. Jace had already been up and about before she roused and when she had stirred in that empty bed the first thing she had looked for was him . That had scared her, for a long time ago she had learned the hard way not to let anyone get that close to her. Sooner or later, favourite nannies, teachers or housekeepers always moved on somewhere else, often without even saying goodbye. In the same way, her mother had died without ever trying to repair their fractured relationship and Gigi had lost any prospect of forgiveness and acceptance as well. She couldn’t afford to get attached to Jace. He was a free and easy playboy with a notorious reputation, and she was just one more in a long line of women.

It didn’t matter that he had got up in the middle of the night to let Mo and Hoppy in when Mo whined outside the door. It didn’t matter that he had hugged her most of the night like a precious teddy bear. She was neither a dog nor a toy and she wasn’t here to stay either. No, she was only passing through his life.

Jace watched Gigi walking out to the table, small and slim and graceful. And yet that perfect skin of hers glowed, her blue eyes sparkled, and her luscious pink mouth smiled. She was beautiful even though she didn’t know it and she was his . That thought thundered back through him again and his teeth gritted. She was his... for now . He wasn’t a one-woman man. Soon enough he would tire of her and then it would be over. The dogs swirled round her legs like a moving carpet of fur, begging for her attention.

‘That’s the island of Faros on the horizon,’ he told her, deliberately directing his thoughts away from her.

‘Our destination?’ Gigi queried, fighting to drag her gaze from his tall, dark frame, but that was a struggle when she didn’t want to look anywhere else or when he had been out of her sight for a few hours and she literally felt starved of seeing him.

‘Yes. It’s a private island.’ She studied him intently as he spoke. His dark suit fitted him with exquisite, tailored perfection blended with designer style. With his glossy black curls and potent emerald-green eyes, he was electrifyingly sexy. Broad of shoulder, narrow hips, tight waist and long, powerful legs. And below the suit, he was all lean, hard muscle.

‘Your family own it?’ All of a sudden, Gigi was finding it very hard to breathe.

‘I do.’ Jace shrugged, watching her frown down at the bewildering number of choices on the breakfast table before helping herself to a simple cup of tea. ‘The island has the only house in the family that’s large enough to entertain the whole Diamandis clan. It usually belongs to the head of the family but because my grandmother didn’t get on with her son Argus—my father—my grandfather left the house jointly to my grandmother and me... Argus was hopping mad.’

‘Why didn’t your grandmother get on with her son? He was her eldest child and often the eldest is the favourite—’

‘She couldn’t forgive him for rejecting me and when he tried to disinherit me, it was the last straw. They had a massive fight and I think they both said things that the other couldn’t forgive.’ Jace shrugged a broad shoulder ruefully. ‘Argus loathed the fact that he couldn’t use the big house on Faros. He felt it lowered his standing in the family. Status, appearances, reputation? They meant more than anything else to my father. He built a mansion of his own at the other end of the island.’

‘Was he a good dad before your mother left him?’ Gigi asked curiously.

‘I hardly knew him... or her, if I’m honest,’ Jace admitted with rueful regret, even while he wondered why he was confiding that truth to her when that admission had never crossed his lips before. ‘That was the nannies and boarding school phase of my life. Both my parents were very busy people. Evander and Marcus changed all that. Their care was much more personalised, much more hands-on and day to day. They took me to school. They attended prize days and Christmas concerts—’

Gigi was impressed by his sheer honesty and happy that he was sharing such personal facts with her. ‘They’re the uncles that raised you?’

Jace nodded confirmation, watching her select a yogurt, the plainest on offer.

Gigi dipped the spoon and licked it, savouring the creaminess, soft pink lips pouting for a split second. Jace felt the throbbing pulse at his groin start up again and he gritted his teeth. Gigi had been in his bed all night and he had taken full advantage of the fact. Why the hell was he still craving her like some wildly addictive drug? He glowered broodingly out to sea, his sensual mouth compressed over the lowering reality of her overwhelming appeal for him.

Gigi finished the yogurt and slid upright again. ‘I need to hurry so that I can get dressed. You had better hope that that fancy frock fits.’

‘It should do.’ His ebony brows drew together as he swung back to face her, recalling a necessity he could not afford to overlook. ‘I’ll organise a blood test for you towards the end of next week and text you the arrangements. It will tell us whether you’re pregnant days before an ordinary test would.’

Gigi glanced back over her shoulder in surprise. ‘I didn’t realise that you were that concerned about that.’

‘Obviously it’s a possibility that we shouldn’t ignore. I’ll be away on business next week,’ he warned her.

‘It’ll give us a break...after we’ve spent the whole weekend together,’ Gigi pointed out quietly, feeling that she needed that time away from him to plant her feet firmly back on solid ground again.

The dress fitted like a dream. It was blue, neither too short nor revealing and it suited her better than anything she had ever owned. She eased her feet into the high-heeled sandals with their opulent pearl trim. Her legs looked unusually long even to her own critical gaze. She sat down at the dresser and braided her hair to put it up.

‘I need make-up,’ she told him wryly.

‘I didn’t see any in your house, didn’t think of that,’ Jace admitted. ‘But there’s a beauty salon onboard.’

Gigi was reckoning that her few bits of make-up were probably still in her bag under one of her coats in the hallway. She turned wide-eyed to stare. ‘Really?’

‘And one of those beauty consultants.’

‘Take me there,’ she pressed without hesitation, knowing that a little primping was necessary for a high-society party.

He escorted her down to a lower deck and left her there with the chattering consultant. Thirty minutes later, she emerged again, convinced that she could hold her own in any gathering. Her enhancement was subtle and much better done than she could have contrived on her own. She looked natural and that was exactly what she had wanted.

Jace watched her step onto the launch and smiled. She looked amazingly beautiful in that dress, shapely legs on show but nothing else. She looked like a lady, elegant and collected. The neckline looked a little bare though, her slender neck unadorned. He still wished she had been willing to wear the diamonds.

The island was very green with trees and gorgeous in the sunshine. She glanced back at the launch leaving the small harbour again, white water eddying in its wake against the deep blue of the sea. A huge SUV whisked them through the bustling village, past the big Greek Orthodox church and uphill on a rough road. Within minutes they were turning up a paved lane bounded by palm trees.

‘Does your grandmother live here?’ Gigi asked.

‘During the summer but once winter kicks in, she returns to the mainland.’

It was a very grandiose, palatial house stretching across the whole top of the hill. White walls, tall gleaming windows and elegant terraces overlooked the gardens and the bay below. ‘Very impressive,’ she muttered nervously.

The huge hallway was a rush of surging and busy people. ‘Caterers,’ Jace explained as an older man approached them, apologising in Greek for the disturbance.

Jace introduced her to Dmitri, who was in charge of the household, and asked how his grandmother was. He referred to her as ‘Yaya’, just as Gigi’s family had labelled her late grandmother.

Dmitri grinned. ‘Full of life today. Mrs Diamandis enjoyed her breakfast outdoors and even walked out to see her birds.’

‘She likes birds?’ Gigi queried in surprise.

‘I’ve already told her about Snowy. She wants to see him. If he won a home in her fancy aviary complex, he would be fortunate indeed.’

His hand in hers, Jace strode ahead of Dmitri and led the way into an opulent sitting room that opened out into a shaded conservatory lush with tropical plants. ‘Just in time for the festivities,’ a lively voice announced.

And there in a basketwork armchair sat a little old lady with silvery hair and a delighted smile spreading across her soft, weathered face. ‘Evander said you’d be late.’

‘And yet, here I am in good time for lunch. This is Giselle Campbell... I call her Gigi. Gigi, this is Electra Diamandis.’

A hand was extended to Gigi as she was looked over from head to toe, but the smile remained, from which Gigi deduced that she at least looked acceptable. ‘Happy birthday, Kyria Diamandis.’

She was offered a powdered cheek to kiss. ‘Congratulations, Jace. You have finally brought a young woman home to meet me. Call me Yaya, Gigi, because you’re obviously going to be family. Sit down and tell me all about yourself. My goodness, Evander and Marcus are in for a surprise!’

Lashes fluttering at that extraordinary welcome speech, Gigi wondered what was going on and she sank uncertainly down into the indicated seat.

‘Jace always swore that the only woman he would ever bring home would be his intended bride.’ Gigi’s bare hand was lifted by her hostess. ‘Taking your time about putting a ring on that finger, aren’t you?’ she shot at Jace with a warning look of concern.

Feverish colour lined Jace’s high cheekbones as shock rocked him where he stood. He spread a troubled glance between the two women.

‘Go and see your uncles,’ Electra instructed. ‘And by the way, I changed your catering arrangements for lunch. We’re having a buffet instead of a sit-down meal. There’s too many guests for the dining room.’

Looking a shade shell-shocked by the encounter, Jace studied Gigi’s burning face and winced inwardly. He supposed he should have immediately contradicted his grandmother concerning Gigi’s status in his life, but he had been too disconcerted by the reminder that he had once said that the only woman he would bring home would be his future wife. In addition, the old lady looked so happy with that interpretation that he had not the heart to disabuse her of the assumption. How many times had his grandmother bemoaned the fact that she was not yet a great -grandmother like her friends? Although it would be an even bigger shock for him if he turned out to be the father of that much desired great-grandchild, he acknowledged grimly.

‘Jace told me you have a cockatoo who’s looking for a home.’

‘I didn’t know that Jace had told you about Snowy—’

‘Jace phones me every day,’ Electra Diamandis revealed. ‘There’s not much he doesn’t tell me.’

Gigi gripped her hands together nervously at that news and decided to keep the chat centred on Snowy as she advanced details on the bird.

‘I have to apologise to you now in advance,’ the old lady murmured very quietly. ‘I didn’t know until this week that Jace was bringing you and he hadn’t invited many young people. I didn’t want my party to be only the older folk and I invited a bevy of youthful beauties from the family to liven the men up.’

‘Sounds exciting.’ Gigi smiled and swept up the cold drink Dmitri brought her. She talked about her job and her pets while wondering why Jace’s grandmother was so keen to see him married off. His reputation? Or did she just think it was time that Jace settled down? Why hadn’t Jace put his grandmother right? Gigi felt as though she was being welcomed on a false premise and it embarrassed her. She was merely a girlfriend for the sake of appearances, not a future Diamandis bride.

Jace reappeared to collect her, allowing other family members to move in and sit down with Electra. He whisked her off.

‘Why didn’t you tell her that I’m not in line to become your wife?’ she hissed at him.

‘I didn’t know what to say. I did say a long time ago that the only woman I would introduce to the family would be my bride, but I’d totally forgotten saying it,’ he confided. ‘It’s just wishful thinking on Yaya’s part and harmless conjecture.’

He took her straight to a pair of attractive older men talking in a quiet corner of the crowded hall. ‘Evander...and Marcus. This is Gigi.’

‘Evander Diamandis.’ The tall man with the pepper and salt hair and beard gave her a firm handshake.

‘Marcus.’ Blond and British with wings of white over his ears and slighter in build than his partner, Marcus grinned at her. ‘We’ve been waiting a very long time for Jace to bring home a girlfriend—’

‘But we’ll hold off on fetching my mother’s engagement ring to give you,’ Evander continued with wry amusement. ‘I don’t think you’re quite ready for that as yet, but I’m afraid the rumours are flying round here already. Let my mother enjoy her eightieth, Jace, and dream her dreams undisturbed.’

‘I intend to but thanks for not producing the ring on demand,’ Jace murmured with a pained roll of his eyes.

‘You can push off now and give us five minutes to get to know Gigi,’ Marcus told him with amusement.

Jace had landed lucky with his second set of parents, she decided. Evander and Marcus were lively, entertaining company but Gigi was on edge, very much aware that she was being sized up.

‘So, you’re both still in the besotted phase,’ Evander commented, startling her.

Taken aback by the observation, Gigi stammered, ‘Er...no, I—’

‘You can’t stop looking for him and he can barely take his eyes off you for ten seconds,’ Evander sliced in calmly. ‘Not our business, I know, but it’s good to see that he’s opening himself up to more challenging possibilities.’

Jace reclaimed her as though he were snatching her from the jaws of death and she laughed with genuine amusement. ‘They were very pleasant. Apparently, we’re in the besotted phase.’

‘Is that why I keep wanting to rip your clothes off?’ His dazzling smile lifted the tension from his lean, dark face. ‘Bless them, they do love to watch people. Let me show you around the house in case we get separated later.’

As they strolled around, she met more and more guests, including Jace’s half-brother, Domenico, aka Nic, arm in arm with a very beautiful blonde. She found herself staring up at Nic, trying to see how much he looked like Jace, but the resemblance was only fleeting in his smile and other expressions.

The buffet would begin only when Electra Diamandis made her official appearance.

‘You didn’t tell me you had a brother,’ she censured as he led her upstairs.

‘I don’t know him very well yet. My father remarried and he’s the result. I first met him at our father’s funeral. He’s very successful in business and looks set to marry early. Perhaps he will make Yaya’s dreams come true with a great-grandchild.’

‘I hope we don’t get faced with that issue,’ she muttered unhappily.

‘Never tackle trouble before it comes unless, of course, you can influence the outcome...and you can’t ,’ Jace pointed out in challenge, pushing open a door on a wide airy room that seemed, by the number of doors visible, to yield entry to several other rooms. ‘We are sleeping here tonight in the master suite. Your luggage will be brought here later.’

Trouble? Was that how Jace saw the risk of a pregnancy? Well, how else did she expect him to view it? Did she feel any different? At this stage of her life and career? For a split second, she had an image of a child who looked remarkably like a miniaturised version of Jace and, involuntarily, her heart lifted and warmed. If there was a child, she would raise her child with all the love and warmth her mother had denied her. She would make space in her busy life, she would make changes for her child’s sake and put her child first. It didn’t really matter how Jace felt about the prospect. She didn’t need him to raise a child, she told herself fiercely, her natural independent streak taking charge of her.

‘You’ve gone all serious now. I shouldn’t have brought up that subject.’ Jace sighed.

‘ Are we besotted with each other?’ Gigi suddenly asked in dismay. ‘I don’t want to feel like that. I don’t want you to be that important to me—’

Jace grinned down at her, slow and assured. ‘I feel the same, but it doesn’t seem to be something we have much control over.’

And without warning, long fingers traced her delicate jawline and curled round the back of her neck and he kissed her with all the hunger that had built since early morning and, if anything, her response engulfed his. They made it down onto the bed, kicking off shoes, and she shouted when he wrenched at her dress. ‘Don’t you dare rip it! I have nothing else to wear!’ she warned him.

Jace ran down her zip and unhooked the neckline at a very decorous pace. He lifted it off over her head.

‘We shouldn’t be doing this,’ she sighed without much fight in her.

Jace released her bra with a skilled hand. ‘I guess this is what besotted people do,’ he breathed thickly.

The burning heat and hunger of his kiss overwhelmed her. She couldn’t resist him when that ache clenched between her legs. It turned her into a total hussy, who flattened him to the bed and ripped off his tie.

Jace sat up, his dazzling smile never more evident as he casually, gracefully undressed, skimming off everything until he was reclining beside her unashamedly naked and bronzed. ‘I’m all yours.’

And she thought then, If only he were , and just as quickly she caught up on that reflection and drove it out of her head again. She wasn’t going to fall in love with him. She already felt more for Jace than she was comfortable with feeling. Whatever he felt for her was sexual, nothing deeper, nothing lasting. She would be a very foolish woman if she dared to think otherwise.

Passion glittered in Jace’s spectacular eyes and she quivered with helpless anticipation, her body even more wound up than her brain. She almost passed out with pleasure when, having protected them both, he sank lethally deep and sure into her and then there was the long climb to satisfaction followed by a frantic rush to get dressed and presentable again. There was a flush on her cheeks and a ripeness to the pouting pink of her swollen mouth that set Jace on fire again before he even got back downstairs. If this was ‘besotted’ it was joyful fun and excitement, he reasoned, and he could happily live with it.

When they entered the big room where the buffet was being served and where the guests were spilling out onto the outdoor terraces, Gigi became aware of just how much she and Jace were under close scrutiny, particularly by the young and beautiful women sprinkled through the crush.

‘I think Yaya’s fondest hopes have spread,’ Jace opined. ‘It should keep everyone polite and distant.’

‘Why wouldn’t they be polite?’

‘My female cousins always assumed that one of them would marry me, so you’re treading on toes, which is good.’

‘How...good?’ Gigi asked thinly.

‘Well, if you’re assumed to be my future wife, few will wish to get on the wrong side of you.’ Jace laughed. ‘And they’re probably too busy gossiping to spare the time.’

‘I don’t like anyone thinking that I’m your bride-to-be,’ Gigi admitted tightly.

‘I apologise,’ Jace declared, a touch brusque in his delivery, his dazzling eyes narrowing. ‘This is my fault because I was reluctant to contradict my grandmother and disappoint her.’

‘Don’t worry about it. When they never see me again, they’ll know the truth.’

Jace’s lean, darkly handsome features were now taut, his sensual mouth compressed at the prospect of never seeing her again. ‘Obviously.’

There was a sharp little silence and it occurred to her that she had been tactless being so blunt, and her face flushed. Suddenly she was mortified at her lack of generosity. What did it matter if a pack of people she would never see again believed she was something she was not? And furthermore, when Jace inevitably moved on to other women, the rumours would be exposed as trivial nonsense.

They sat outside on a shaded terrace, soon joined by Jace’s brother and the blonde beauty, who was apparently, in spite of appearances, not his girlfriend but actually his best friend. She noticed that Jace was very quiet, and her healthy appetite died long before she went indoors to the cloakroom.

As she crossed the hall again, a tall, curvaceous blonde greeted her. ‘I’m Seraphina Diamandis,’ she said, much as if she expected Gigi to already know who she was.

‘Oh?’ Gigi remarked awkwardly.

‘Jace was mine first. I thought you should know,’ she announced with a subdued melodrama that widened her eyes and made her sultry lips pout.

‘It’s not really something that I want to talk about,’ Gigi said gently, keen to avoid any kind of confrontation.

‘I’m Jace’s cousin.’

It put new light on keeping it within the family, Gigi conceded.

‘I’ll be at every family gathering you attend,’ Seraphina informed her ominously.

‘I don’t care who was with Jace first,’ Gigi confided. ‘I only aspire to be his last.’

After that uneasy meeting, Gigi caught her breath again while photos were taken of them all. A sea of camera phones flashed as Electra opened a handful of presents, one of which was Jace’s, a superb modern painting. His grandmother insisted on showing Gigi her art collection with Evander and Marcus in tow. She had no idea where Jace had gone but she learned a lot that she didn’t know about art in such knowledgeable company.

Snowy the cockatoo had arrived from the yacht and Electra accompanied Gigi out to see her aviary. The old lady had decided that she wanted Humphrey, the lazy, non-foraging tortoise, for her garden as well. Gigi had good reason to be grateful that she hadn’t brought either Hoppy or Tilly out from the yacht, lest she find them being rehomed as well. She no longer needed to wonder where Jace had acquired his love of animals.

As Electra retired for the night, a DJ took over. Jace was drinking with a crowd of his male relatives and evidently not looking for her.

‘Did you two have an argument?’ Marcus asked while he put on a lively display of dad-dancing.

‘A misunderstanding,’ Gigi replied uncomfortably.

After a couple of hours socialising with Evander and Marcus, Gigi went over to Jace and told him that she was tired.

‘I’ll be up later,’ he told her smoothly, catching her hand in his, lifting it towards his mouth and then letting it go again as if he didn’t know quite why he had reached for it in the first place.

Gigi went up to bed, leaving Seraphina and her best friends doing some very suggestive dancing at the edge of the floor closest to Jace. So, she had put her feet in it with him, she told herself as she climbed into the comfy bed alone. She had acted insulted over being viewed as Jace’s future wife and she had offended him. Why?

Her eyes stung. Perhaps her messy emotions were something to do with the fact that at that moment she had, crazily, wished it were truth and not mere rumour. And she was ashamed of that weak spot inside her that wanted a happy ending against all the odds. She swallowed hard and lay awake for a long time waiting for Jace to join her, but she was fast asleep when he finally did in the early hours of the morning.