Husband for the Holidays

Chapter Nine

CHAPTER NINE

“K ONSTANTIN ,” E LOISE brEATHED , APPALLED .

“We weren’t planning to announce it today.” Konstantin rose and drew Eloise onto her feet and into his arms.

“No, we weren’t.” Her limbs didn’t feel connected to her body. She pressed weakly at his chest, but it took all her control to lock her knees rather than collapse in a heap.

“But look how happy this news makes your mother.”

Oh, that was just evil, stopping her protests in her throat.

“Oh, darling,” her mother said weepily, eyes bright with joy.

“Mom—” She hesitated to slap that look off her mother’s face with the truth, but there was no way she could lie to her about something like this.

Konstantin’s arms tightened around her, pressing tingles of sensual memory through her skin and muscle and blood cells, urging her to go along.

Was he drunk?

But even as she tried to find the words to say that Konstantin was full of it, his ruse got rid of one very sticky problem.

“As I was saying, I’ve been called away,” Edoardo blurted. “Happy news. Congratulations.” With one final wild look toward Antoine, Edoardo made his escape.

Ironically, Eloise wished she could go with him. The malice she felt coming off Antoine was so thick it oozed.

Antoine rose to shake Konstantin’s hand in a very perfunctory way. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you. Eloise was concerned you would be upset.” Konstantin held Antoine’s stare in challenge.

“Antoine has only ever wanted what’s best for you, darling. I hope you know that.” Her mother rose to embrace each of them, but Eloise felt Antoine’s malignant glare. He was more than upset. He was blistering with such fury Eloise couldn’t help pressing into Konstantin’s solid presence when her mother stepped back.

“No ring yet?” Her mother kept her hand, and covered it with her own, exclaiming, “Darling! You can wear my ring from Petros. It’s in the safe. No.” She touched her chin as she started to turn away. “The box at the bank in Athens. We’ll have to make a special trip,” she said to Antoine.

“In the New Year, perhaps.” Antoine manufactured a lovey-dovey smile. “We’re expected in Como for Christmas. Remember? You’re looking forward to seeing Melissa.”

“That’s true, but...” Her brows drew together in consternation.

“Mom, that’s not necessary,” Eloise protested.

This isn’t even real .

“I want you to have it,” her mother insisted. “It would have gone to Ilias for his wife and it bothers me that it’s locked away. Ilias would want you to wear it, especially if you’re marrying Konstantin.” She tilted a watery smile up at him. “You’re practically family already.”

Did Konstantin flinch? If he did, he masked it before Eloise had registered more than a twitch of his arm around her and the bob of his Adam’s apple as he swallowed.

“That’s kind of you to say, Lilja.”

“Shall we sit and finish our meal?” Antoine said tersely, attempting to take control by moving to hold Lilja’s chair.

“And champagne, please, Marcel,” her mother instructed as she sat. “Oh, there’s so much to discuss. Have you set a date?”

“Nothing is decided yet,” Eloise stressed.

Don’t get attached, Mom .

Did Konstantin not understand how wrong it was to build her mother’s expectations like this?

“Yes, there is much to discuss,” Konstantin agreed as he held Eloise’s chair. His tone was both pleasant and lethal. “Details of the prenup,” he added in Antoine’s direction. “I have interests to protect as well.”

For once, Eloise allowed herself a huge gulp of alcohol when the champagne arrived.

“What—” she could barely keep the pitch of her voice to a level tone as the car left her mother’s front steps “—the hell.”

“It’s the most expedient solution,” Konstantin said in that same tone of finality that he’d used earlier when he’d said, I only argue about things that matter.

“It’s a bluff and he knows it.” She curled her cold fists, still shaking from Antoine’s warning as they left. “He just said to me, don’t come in here with a gun that’s not loaded .”

Konstantin turned his head to give her a look that was unimpressed. “I can’t decide if the man genuinely lacks intelligence or is so driven by desperation he’s becoming reckless. Either way, he is the one holding the gun and he’s already shot himself in the foot with it.”

“How? You’ve made things so much worse.” She propped her elbow next to the window and covered her eyes. “You heard Mom. She’s already planning the wedding.”

“Good. Now you have a reason to speak to her as often as you like.”

“What am I supposed to do? Let her think it’s real for a year, then yank the rug? I told you I don’t want to hurt her.”

“Tempted as I am to force Antoine to foot the bill on an extravagant wedding that winds up canceled, we’re not waiting a year.” He glanced at his phone as it pinged, then touched the driver’s shoulder.

“Sir?” The driver removed his ear bud.

“The jeweler has agreed to come to us. You can drop us at our hotel.”

“Very good, sir.” He screwed the bud back into his ear and made the turn to the Promenade des Anglais.

“What jeweler?” Eloise hissed.

“The one providing your ring. Wear anything your mother gives you if it makes you happy, but you’ll wear my ring at that party tomorrow.”

“For Antoine’s sake? You’re taking this too far,” she protested. “I’m glad you put Edoardo on the run. Thank you for that. Really. But Antoine is not stupid. He knows I have nothing going for me beyond passable looks and presumed fertility. That’s why he offered me to a man who wants a society wife and a vessel for his heir. He thinks it would put Edoardo in his debt. You don’t have to settle for someone who is broke, though. Antoine knows that.”

“Thank God you’re here to explain patriarchy to me. I’ve never gotten the hang of it.”

“No, you’re doing it right,” she assured him. “This game of chicken you’ve entered into with Antoine is a classic use of a woman to one-up another man. But I refuse to be part of it. This lie has gone far enough. I can’t mess with my mother like that.”

“Eloise.” He frowned at her. “I’m not sure where the communication has broken down. Do you not realize I’m serious? We’re marrying.”

“What?” Her heart lurched. Maybe she was still asleep in her bed in New York and none of this had happened. She pinched her arm, half expecting to wake up on the subway, cold and hungry and miserable.

She was awake, though. This was real. Her blood was skimming so fast through her arteries her whole body vibrated. Her inner seventeen-year-old wanted to faint with excitement, but she was a sensible adult now. She knew dreams were only dreams. They never came true.

“We can divorce later,” Konstantin added in a throwaway rumble. “If necessary.”

And there it was. The wake-up call. He didn’t really want her. Why would he? That was why Antoine wasn’t taking this seriously. Her stepfather knew as well as anyone that she brought nothing to a marriage.

The car stopped at the curb and the bellman rushed to open her door, giving her the chance to mutter over her shoulder, “Romantic as your proposal is, I’d rather swim back to New York and pick up toys from the gutter.”

Her exit would have been glorious if she didn’t have to go back to the room they shared for her passport and other effects.

Konstantin caught up to her as she stepped into the elevator. His expression was an iron mask as he took her hand before she could touch the button for their floor. Her heart leaped, but he was only forestalling her so he could choose a different button.

“They’ve moved us to a bigger suite.”

“I just want my things,” she said stiffly, pulling her hand free and trying to put space between them in the close confines of the elevator.

When the doors opened, a starlet and her entourage were waiting, everyone gabbling gaily.

Eloise pressed a smile onto her lips and stepped out, still shaking with turbulent emotions.

Konstantin led her to a door that he unlocked before he leaned to push it open, allowing her to precede him into the room.

It was even more beautiful than the one they had shared last night. An abundance of windows offered bright views overlooking the sea. There was a sitting room and inside one of the bedrooms, a young woman was putting away clothes. Bags and bags of them.

“What—? Konstantin .”

“Oh! Shall I come back?” the startled young woman asked in French.

“ Oui. Merci .” Eloise was barely hanging on to her fraying temper. As the maid left, she turned on him. “You’re doing exactly what Antoine did. You’re telling me what’s going to happen and assuming I’ll go along with it.”

His head went back. “That’s insulting.”

“Am I not allowed to be insulted? You proposed marriage out of spite .” It was especially hurtful coming from him, the man she’d girlishly dreamed of marrying. “You slapped him in the face with me as the gauntlet. Excuse me while I don’t fawn all over you for treating me like chattel. I’m not a tool or a weapon. I’m not—”

Oh, she was going to cry. This was so humiliating.

Locking her throat against the bubble of pressure trying to burst free, she moved into the bedroom and searched for her long coat, double-checking that her passport was still in its zipped inner pocket. It was, along with her well-worn and mostly empty wallet. She took off the jacket she was wearing, throwing it onto the bed.

“Think this through, Eloise,” Konstantin said crisply. “Negotiating the prenup forces Antoine to open your mother’s financial books to me. If there’s malfeasance, I’ll find it and put a stop to it. You want that.”

She did, but—

“He can’t marry you to anyone else if you’re married to me, can he?”

No, but... “I don’t have to marry anyone if I don’t want to,” she blurted, still hurt by his drive-by proposal. “Especially when it’s only a ridiculous stunt. You really want to go through all of this trouble and expense, buy me clothes and a ring, stage a wedding and negotiate a prenup just so you can get a peek inside a few ledgers? Fake a business deal with him,” she cried, waving her hand in the air. “There are thousands of ways you could sic accountants on him.”

“How are you missing that marriage accomplishes so much more than that?” He clasped the top of the door where he stood. “Think of the power and influence you’ll have. He thought you’d make a good society wife? Hell, yes, you will. If you are my wife, no one will dare cross you, least of all him. And if he were to somehow steal all of your mother’s money—which I won’t allow to happen, but if he did—you’d have the means to support her.”

“How?” she cried. “You just said we’d divorce.”

“ If necessary,” he repeated.

“How could it not be necessary? You don’t want to marry me.”

“Of course, I want to. I don’t do things I don’t want to do,” he said pithily.

“Yes, I know that,” she said heatedly. “You’ve pushed me away enough times to make that very obvious.” She hated to bring that up. It made her stomach hurt, the rejections were so sharp, but it was the truth.

“Really?” He dropped his arm to his side. “You’re upset that I didn’t kiss you when you were seventeen? You were seventeen .”

“What about the funeral?”

“It was a funeral . And last night you were crying.”

“I wasn’t crying this morning, was I? But you still couldn’t get out of bed fast enough!”

His brows shot up. After a pause that caused her heart to batter the inside of her chest like a trapped bird, he said in a low rasp, “If I’d stayed in that bed, we would be marrying anyway because I didn’t have a condom. I do now, by the way.”

Gulp . She tried to look away, but the man was the king of staring contests, able to put erotic visions in her head with eye contact alone and forcing her to hold that vision between them until her scalp tightened. So did her nipples.

“We don’t have to marry to have sex,” she mumbled, hugging herself. Then she put up a hand, even though he hadn’t moved. “That wasn’t an invitation. I’m just saying that insisting on marriage is an overreaction.”

“No, Eloise.” His voice hardened. “What I’ve done until now has been an under -reaction.” He pushed off the door so he filled the whole space with his powerful presence. “I cannot believe I left you and your mother to your own devices for this long. Marrying you is a correction. A necessary one. I intend to provide for your needs for the rest of your life. I intend to look out for your mother to the best of my ability. Marriage is the most expedient way to do those things.”

“And what do you get out of it? A clean conscience? Sex?”

“Yes.”

“You know that’s not any more romantic than marrying me out of spite, right?”

He muttered a tired curse toward the ceiling.

“Look.” She hugged the coat she still held. “I’m tempted to let you take over and look after us. That’s a really nice offer, but as far as making corrections goes, I want to be strong enough to help my mother myself. Using you to do it makes me feel like I’m not enough. Like I’m still a—” She cut herself off and looked at her coat, wondering what she thought she was doing. Where would she go if she walked out? To her mother and Antoine?

“Still a what?” he prompted gruffly.

She threw the coat on the bed and took a few restless paces between the bed and the open wardrobe.

“Mom never called me a burden. She never said she didn’t want me, but she didn’t intend to have me. She met my father while she was on vacation. They had a brief affair and she didn’t realize she was pregnant until it was too late to make other choices. And it was all on her to raise me. Dad was never there to change a diaper or anything.”

“Did she change a diaper?” His brow went up with skepticism.

“No. I had nannies, obviously. But paying for them came out of the fortune that Ilias’s father left her. My father didn’t give her anything but a responsibility she hadn’t asked for.”

“Has she ever said anything to make you think she regrets having you?” he asked with gentle challenge.

“Not in a mean way. More like mother–daughter advice. Like, she was always very frank telling me about sex and warning me that pregnancy and babies are harder than anyone tells you. And that once you have a baby with someone, you’re connected for life so, you know, choose wisely. It was a warning not to get into her situation.”

“Your father was never part of your life at all?”

“I saw him a few times a year, but I was really young. My only strong memory is a yelling match when I was five or so. Ilias was thirteen so I asked him about it years later. Dad had tried to talk Mom into letting me go on the circuit with him, but she was afraid he would forget me somewhere or I’d drown. It’s kind of heartening to know he wanted more of a relationship with me, but then he died and...” She shrugged. “It really was on Mom to support me. With Ilias’s money.”

“Ilias would never have begrudged his inheritance going to your upbringing. It was her money when you were a child and it is again. I think you’re letting Antoine’s manipulations get into your head.”

“But he’s not wrong . You’re right that Ilias made it seem natural that Drakos money would pay for my upkeep. I took for granted that it always would, until Antoine called me a freeloader.”

“He is not one to talk.”

“But he has a point. It’s time that I looked after Mom, not the other way around.”

“You can’t. I’m not saying that to be cruel. It’s the truth.”

She bit her lip, angered by reality, but unable to refute it.

“I understand where you’re coming from, Eloise. I hated that I needed Ilias’s help. I couldn’t have saved my grandfather’s company without him and your allowing me to help you allows me to let go of my own sense of having fallen short.”

“But you shouldn’t feel that way,” she insisted, taking a few steps toward him. “If Ilias was in this predicament, then fine. You could marry him. But—”

“Don’t make jokes,” he said sharply. “Ilias is one of the few people I ever trusted or cared about. I know where I would be if he hadn’t stepped in when he had. It would look a lot like the ruin you’ve been wallowing in.”

“Nice.”

“True,” he asserted. “And your situation is my fault. I don’t claim to be anything but self-interested, but even I have my limits. Your mother called me family.” His profile flexed with his effort to resist some intense emotion. “You’re supposed to be able to trust your family to support you, not leave you in harm’s way, which is what I did.”

“She didn’t say that to obligate you!”

“Because she doesn’t realize the harm she’s in. Instead, she feels—sincerely—that there’s something in me worth caring about, the same way your damned brother did. That’s why I’m so ashamed of letting her down. And him.”

He was radiating the coiled energy of a lion with a thorn in his paw, but she was getting the sense this was about more than a twinge of disloyalty to his friend. How could he not think he was worth caring about? She cared about him. She always had.

How to make him see that, though? Without getting rejected again?

There was a knock at the outer door, startling her.

“The jeweler. At least look at what he’s brought.”