Husband for the Holidays

Chapter Eight

CHAPTER EIGHT

A CCORDING TO THE reports Konstantin had received from his assistant, Ilias’s mother had stayed in Athens for the first year after Ilias died. Then she had begun traveling with friends, dating a number of men before attaching herself to Antoine. They had dated, became engaged, then moved to Nice once they married. They’d been here three years.

Her new husband had money, yes, but none of it had been earned through any serious effort on his part. He had inherited a modest fortune at eighteen from an aunt. He then married one of his aunt’s friends, an older woman with a heart condition. She had passed within a few years, leaving Antoine a tidy sum that allowed him to penetrate higher social circles. The next time he married, it was a French pop star. She divorced him fairly quickly, granting him a shockingly large settlement on his way out the door. That suggested to Konstantin that she’d done whatever necessary to get him out of her life.

After that, he’d had a string of long-term relationships with wealthy women of an appropriate age, all well-placed in Europe’s highest social circles. He was the sort of man who thought he should have been born an aristocrat and would have been the worst kind if he had.

Konstantin had asked his assistant to track down the retired trustee, Cyrus, but discreetly, so it was taking time.

The car stopped in front of a quiet fountain. A butler hurried out with an umbrella, even though the rain was barely spitting.

Konstantin came around and took it, tempted to set his hand in Eloise’s lower back, but he couldn’t trust himself to keep his touch bolstering rather than a caress of appreciation. He was determined to be her bodyguard right now. Her wingman. Nothing more.

But he’d always found her naturally attractive with her eyes looking green in some light and gold in others. Her features had lovely symmetry and the corners of her mouth tilted upward in an appealing way, even when she was somber, as she was now.

When he’d entered the shop a short while ago, he’d been spellbound by her. Her mood had been light, her pose cheeky. She’d been carefree and so beautiful he’d instantly been awash in want.

God did he want her. He’d spent the hours apart from her trying not to think of the way she’d reached for him this morning, only to shudder with orgasm. He’d barely touched her! It was the most erotic thing he’d ever experienced and he damned well wanted more. He’d been fighting that craving, but as they’d stood in the shop, he hadn’t been able to resist asking whom she had been dreaming of.

Her look of guilt had punched straight into his groin. He’d nearly shouted to clear the store so he could take her right then and there. His desire for her had been so obvious the stylist had recognized it in an instant and tried to excuse herself.

Pay attention , he ordered himself as they entered a foyer where a curved staircase swept to the upper floor and a domed ceiling held a sparkling chandelier.

“Eloise!” Lilja rushed toward them from a door to their left. She barely glanced at him, too anxious to embrace her daughter.

Lilja was a little taller than Eloise, but not much. Her blond hair had turned to silver since Konstantin had seen her last, but otherwise she was the same classic beauty she had always been. She was slender and elegant and closed her eyes as she held onto Eloise and drew in a savoring breath.

“I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you, too, Mom. But—” Eloise rubbed her mother’s back “—did you see who I brought with me?”

“Hmm? Oh, I presumed this was your driver. Konstantin !” Lilja laughed into her hand. “I’m so sorry. Goodness, look at you!” She set her light hands on his arms and offered her cheeks for his kiss.

“I’ve been called worse,” he said with genuine amusement. “How are you, Lilja? When Eloise told me she was seeing you, I insisted on coming along.”

“I’m so glad,” she said with misty sincerity, but sent a disconcerted look toward the door she’d come through. “You’ll stay for lunch, of course. Tell the kitchen we’re five, please, Marcel,” she said to the hovering butler before looping her arm through both of theirs. “Come say hello. Have you met my husband, Konstantin? I don’t think so.”

Her smile seemed forced as she escorted them into a high-ceilinged parlor where the view beyond the windows looked to the horizon of the Med.

A pair of men rose from their armchairs. One was white-haired and slightly paunchy beneath his bespoke suit. The other was closer to Konstantin’s age, clean-shaven and might be called boyishly handsome. He struck Konstantin as cocksure in his trendy plaid trousers, his thick cardigan pushed up to his elbows and his button shirt open at his throat.

Both men eyed him with keen yet somewhat hostile interest.

“Antoine, you’ll never guess who Eloise has brought with her today.”

“I’m sure I won’t since I didn’t expect her to bring anyone.” There was a subtle edge to Antoine’s tone that Konstantin immediately disliked.

“It’s nice to see you,” Eloise said weakly, stepping away from Lilja and moving so her stepfather could kiss her cheeks. “This is Konstantin Galanis. He was one of Ilias’s closest friends. I’m sure Mom must have mentioned him.”

She stepped aside so Konstantin could shake Antoine’s hand. They took each other’s measure with one succinct pump.

“Edoardo Ricci is also a good friend of the family,” Lilja said.

The other man stepped forward. “It’s so good to see you again, Eloise.” Edoardo’s hands came up as though to take hold of Eloise’s upper arms.

Her recoil was only slight, but Konstantin reacted reflexively. He locked his arm across her back and splayed possessive fingers on her hip, tucking her into his side.

Edoardo’s expression blanked. He dropped his hands and offered Konstantin a limp shake with a weak, “ Kyrie Galanis. I’m familiar with your name and organization. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Konstantin nodded, always willing to let silence do his talking.

For a stalled moment, there was only the crackle of the fire in the fireplace and the imagined crackle of animosity coming off Antoine toward him.

“Sit. Tell us how you came to deliver Eloise to us today,” Antoine invited, then waved his empty glass at the butler. “More cognac. Mimosas for the girls.”

Konstantin waited while Eloise sat on the sofa before he lowered beside her. He hitched his pant leg as he crossed his legs and extended his arm along the back of the sofa behind her, angling himself more to Lilja than his host. Deliberately.

“Are you feeling as well as you look, Lilja?” Konstantin asked.

“I am,” Lilja assured him with a fluttering smile of pleasure. “Oh, thank you, Marcel.”

The atmosphere grew charged again as the butler set out the fresh drinks. Edoardo’s confusion was a blinking neon light while Konstantin could feel Antoine staring holes into the side of his head.

As the butler left them alone, Lilja asked, “Am I to understand... Are you two seeing each other? Has this been going on long?”

“No.” Konstantin sensed Eloise stiffening beside him and reached for her hand, signaling that she should let him do the talking.

She rose and moved across the room. “Your tree looks pretty, Mom.”

Trying to shift the conversation?

“I wasn’t sure about the silver and blue,” Lilja said reflectively, twisting slightly to continue speaking to her. “I may ask the decorator to change it to something more traditional before our party tomorrow night. You’ll come, won’t you?” She directed that to Konstantin. “It’s nothing fancy, just a festive little soiree for whoever is in town.”

“We’d love to.” Konstantin took far too much pleasure in goading the other men by claiming Eloise as his date.

How Eloise felt about it was a mystery. She was trailing her hands along the polished maple of the grand piano before she lightly touched a few keys.

“Are you going to play for us, darling?” Lilja asked with coaxing warmth. “That would be nice. It’s been too long.”

“Marcel is looking for us to go into the dining room,” Antoine said.

Konstantin turned his head to stare the man down. He had already decided he hated him before he met him, but as Eloise sat and picked out a few notes, it occurred to him that this viper had deliberately kept her from something else she loved: music.

Eloise ignored Antoine and set her hands into unhurried chords that gradually arranged themselves into what Konstantin recognized as “I’ll Be Home for Christmas.”

He looked back to where she gracefully swayed to reach the keys, manifesting the gentle climb and fall of emotions in the song. Her eyes were closed, her profile glowing in the light off the tree.

Konstantin didn’t know all the words, but he knew it was about homesickness and nostalgia. As yearning flowed from her hands to fill the room and vibrate in his chest, his throat ached.

The sadness might have swamped him completely, but she somehow layered in tentative hope as she reached the end.

She sang the final words very softly as she slowed the tempo even more, searching out the last chords with supreme care. A lifetime of wishes hovered in the silence before the final note ended the song.

Konstantin was utterly captivated. His body felt rusted into place, his consciousness having been stolen and transported elsewhere.

“ Brava , darling. That was beautiful,” Lilja said as she wiped tears from her cheeks, but she was smiling widely. They were happy tears and they tugged differently in his chest, making him fiercely glad he’d given her this reunion with her daughter. “That was truly the best Christmas present I could ever have,” she said to Konstantin. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure,” he said, meaning it.

Antoine stood and bent over Lilja so he broke their eye contact. He offered his wife a handkerchief and rubbed her shoulder.

“My sensitive little love. We were at the opera a few weeks ago and she cried her way through that, too. Didn’t you? Shall we go to the table?”

They all stood and Eloise left the piano to join them.

“That was very good,” Edoardo said.

“Parlor tricks,” she claimed with a self-deprecating smile.

Hardly. Konstantin had never been moved by sleight of hand or the flair of a bartender. The fact he was feeling so unsettled by a dated Christmas carol was disturbing in the extreme. He much preferred numbness over this agonizing prickle that resembled a return of sensation to a limb that had fallen asleep. Typically, when something affected him, he removed himself the way he would back away from a bonfire that threatened to light his clothes on fire, but that option wasn’t open to him right now, was it?

“You’re the guest of honor. You can escort Lilja,” Antoine said to Konstantin as though this were a royal procession. “I’ll take Eloise.” He crooked his arm imperiously.

Lilja gathered her composure and set her hand on Konstantin’s arm.

“Actually, you go in with Edoardo. I need a word with Marcel,” Antoine said, stepping back at the last second to wave the younger man toward Eloise.

Did the man think he was playing chess? And winning?

As they arrived into the dining room, and the butler transferred their drinks to the table, Konstantin saw how Antoine was continuing his puerile machinations. The seating arrangements were meant to put Edoardo between Eloise and her mother. Eloise was positioned at Antoine’s left, while Konstantin was supposed to sit across from her and closer to her mother’s end of the table.

As Konstantin seated Lilja, he ordered Edoardo, “Eloise can sit there. I’ll sit next to her.” He nodded at the chair closest to Lilja. Edoardo could visit Siberia on the other side of the table.

“Lilja prefers the proper etiquette of alternating ladies and gentleman,” Antoine told him with a patronizing smile.

“The women want to catch up so we’ll indulge them.” Konstantin could play the doting game, too.

Antoine looked to Edoardo, perhaps seeking an ally, but Edoardo was canny enough to see he had a decision to make: whether to stick with whatever Antoine had promised him or curry favor with the much bigger fish that was Konstantin Galanis for the bank that bore his family name.

Edoardo took the chair on the far side of the table.

The meal went on forever. Konstantin participated in the expected topics of sports and politics and business, all the while listening to Eloise deflect her mother’s probing inquiries about their relationship by asking after mutual acquaintances.

When Edoardo excused himself to make a call, and Lilja was busy relaying details of a play she’d seen recently, Antoine leaned toward Konstantin.

“What exactly is your intention here?” He flicked his gaze toward Eloise. “Is this a dalliance for your own entertainment? Because I have responsibilities where my wife’s daughter is concerned. There are things I won’t allow.”

Konstantin was rarely taken aback by the levels that a man could sink to, but he was genuinely astonished that Antoine would accuse him of being a womanizer. And was casting himself as the guardian best suited to protect her. Exactly how desperate was he to marry her to Edoardo? Why?

The women stopped speaking, sensing the change in temperature.

Edoardo returned with a polite, “I apologize—” He cut himself off as he came up against the wall of hostility between the men.

Antoine held Konstantin’s penetrating gaze and Konstantin wondered if the man was dangerously obtuse or simply too arrogant to see how far out of his league he was.

“A dalliance?” Konstantin repeated with disdain, abandoning good manners. “No. I don’t use women for entertainment. I certainly wouldn’t start with the sister of my best friend.”

“I’m sure Antoine didn’t mean to imply anything like that,” Eloise murmured in a soothing undertone. Her hand found his arm, trying to stay his temper.

He flashed her a glare of outrage because he had heard what he heard.

Anxiety pinched her mouth and there was a line of tension across her cheekbones that seemed to repeat what she had asked him in New York.

What are you going to do? Shatter her beliefs and force her to suffer yet another heartbreak? She would blame me.

He shot his attention to Lilja. She was staring into her plate, blinking back tears, seeming mortified that her luncheon had gone sour.

Look after your daughter , he wanted to shout at her. But hurting Lilja would hurt Eloise, and Lilja was not the villain here. Antoine was. Ilias would expect Konstantin to protect his family from such a man, but how?

The answer arrived the way intuition struck sometimes, when Konstantin saw the way forward long before he had worked through the logistics and reasoning behind it. If Konstantin were the fanciful type, he would say Ilias whispered the solution in his ear.

“My intention is to ask for your blessing, Lilja.” Konstantin was far too pleased with the choked noise that came out of Antoine. “Eloise and I are marrying.”