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  ‘Royalty once got married here,’ Kreon murmured with satisfaction. ‘I never dreamt that one day I would see my own child taking her vows below this roof.’

  The comment lightened Lucy’s tension as nothing else could have done. ‘Glad I’ve finally done something to make you proud but why are the paparazzi so interested?’

  ‘You are about to become a member of one of the foremost families in Greece. Naturally, the public want to know who has captured the notorious playboy, Jax Antonakos—’

  ‘I wouldn’t say captured is the right word,’ Lucy muttered uncomfortably as they paused at the end of the aisle and her father shook out her small train for her and offered his arm to her again with a proud smile.

  ‘He’s a very fortunate man. I hope he appreciates that. You look really beautiful,’ the older man declared with satisfaction.

  Tears stung the backs of Lucy’s eyes because she was touched by her father’s faith in her. She watched Jax turn his handsome dark head and look at her and the ability to breathe died in her throat. The closer she drew to him on their slow walk down the aisle, the more gorgeous he appeared, his dramatic green eyes welded to her approach. Colour warmed her cheeks and tingling heat surged low in her pelvis. She felt as if all her dreams were coming true in that moment and she scolded herself for being too emotional and sentimental. Jax was neither sentimental nor romantic. He didn’t love her and she didn’t love him, she reminded herself firmly, but they had Bella to bind them and, in time, maybe they would find that more than their daughter kept them together.

  Jax studied Lucy with heavily lidded eyes, his attention roaming over every exquisite shapely inch of her petite body. The gown was a triumph, a delicate lace affair of simple design that enhanced her slight stature and gave her elegance. He didn’t look to see how his father was reacting. Only minutes earlier he had noticed his father’s absorption in Bella where she sat on Iola’s knee across the aisle. Heracles longed for grandchildren, and the knowledge that he had a little granddaughter he had yet to meet had at the very last minute made him decide to attend the wedding. True, Jax wasn’t expecting his father to be in a party mood because Heracles hated Kreon Thiarkis and hated that his son was marrying Kreon’s daughter, but Jax was relieved that Heracles had put family first and shelved his reservations to share their day.

  Some of the ceremony went over Lucy’s head, for which she blamed Jax, who had said he was too busy to attend a rehearsal at the cathedral when the services of an interpreter had been available. She concentrated on the simple Greek words that she knew and smiled nervously up at Jax when he slid the ring onto her finger. Their eyes met and the burn inside her spread like wild fire. It was utterly inappropriate but she had never wanted so badly to be kissed. Jax angled his arrogant dark head back and gave her a teasing smile of naked challenge and she went for it as she had always gone for it when he egged her on. She stretched up awkwardly in her very high heels, her hands clutching at his arms to steady herself, and still she wasn’t tall enough.

  With a husky sound of sensual amusement, Jax gathered her up and raised her to his level to taste her lush parted lips for himself. And for a split second, Lucy forgot everything. She forgot that she was in public, she forgot the guests shifting in their seats and the imposing robed Archbishop who had conducted the service. The taste of Jax’s mouth was like a shaft of sunlight bursting inside her after a long winter. It charged her up, rendered her helpless with longing, and the plunge of his tongue into the moist interior of her mouth only multiplied the explosive effect of that kiss on her body. Her heart hammered, her pulses raced as Jax slowly slid her down his lean, powerful frame to stand on her own feet again.

  She caught a glimpse of Iola’s grin and just as suddenly appreciated that she was still in public view. A swoosh of mortified pink lit up her heart-shaped face as Jax closed his hand over hers and walked her back down the aisle.

  Jax was amazed that he felt so relaxed. He had expected to loathe every minute of the wedding. Knowing he was protecting his father was one thing, doing what had to be done when it went against his own instincts was another. But that hot little taste of Lucy’s passion assuaged those feelings. She wanted him, she wanted him just as much as he wanted her, and for the moment that was as much consolation for his sacrifice of freedom as he needed.

  He had struggled against anger, resentment and bitterness throughout the two weeks it had taken to set up the wedding. He had kept his distance from Lucy because he was afraid that she would guess that he was not the enthusiastic bridegroom he was purporting to be. Deception of any kind had always been a challenge for Jax. He was very talented at keeping his feelings to himself but he was very bad at faking anything. He had found the drinks engagement with Kreon and Iola extremely uncomfortable and Lucy’s demands for his opinion on the colour of the bridal flowers and such nonsense had simply exasperated him. For two solid weeks, Jax had rigorously reminded himself that he was acquiring Lucy and his daughter and protecting his father by getting married. But even that couldn’t disperse the sour flavour of having to do what he had always sworn he would not do and take a wife.

  Outside the cathedral the paparazzi went into a frenzy of excitement when the bride and groom appeared. Jax’s father stalked silently from cathedral to limousine without pause. It was ironic that Heracles was furious with his son for marrying Lucy. Only after Jax had pointed out that he had had a daughter with Lucy had Heracles gone from raging to dark muttering, finally accepting that a waitress, who was also the daughter of an obnoxious criminal, was entering the Antonakos family. And having learned about that criminal record, Jax had not argued in his fatherin-law’s favour. Agreeing that Kreon was obnoxious had somewhat soothed his father’s ire.

  Jax had been tempted to bring up the file he had been given on Lucy two years earlier but he had decided to take a rain check on that line of enquiry until after the wedding. Getting information about Kreon Thiarkis had been surprisingly easy but getting information on Lucy was proving deeply problematic. She had lived in so many different places and had even been adopted at one stage when her name had been changed. Indeed the discovery of just how grim Lucy’s growing years had been had saddened Jax. Some years after the adoption she had gone back to using the name she had been given at birth. But Lucy’s frequent childhood moves read like a depressing indictment of social services care and the investigator striving to trace her movements during her adolescence was currently at an admitted standstill.

  Of course, you could simply ask her for the details, Jax reminded himself wryly. Could he trust her answers? Or would she lie to mislead him, hoping to cover up conduct she might now be ashamed of? Jax needed the confidence of knowing that he had the whole truth. Naturally he expected her to deny the drugs offences but, so far, no official record of any such offences had been found. Was it possible that the detective agency his father had used had confused Lucy’s identity with someone else’s? Was it even remotely possible that she was innocent of the charges in that file? But then hadn’t he been equally shocked when he’d seen her with that man in the alleyway? Lucy didn’t wear her sins or her flaws on her lovely face.

  With the ease of long practice Jax buried the memory of Lucy’s betrayal deep where he didn’t have to think about it. If he thought about it, he mused grimly, it would drive him off the edge, the way it had two years ago when he had tried to find solace in the bottom of a bottle: the aftershocks of giving up Lucy had been little short of terrifying for a male who needed to stay in emotional control. For a short while he had been overpowered by his conflicting feelings, not something he was willing to recall or relive. In fact even remembering that made him flinch.

  They arrived at the hotel and settled down with Bella in a private room set aside for their use to drink champagne and await the arrival of their guests. Poised by the window, Jax tensed. ‘That’s my father’s car arriving. Come on. I want to introduce you and Bella.’

  By the time Jax and Lucy reached the grand foyer
, however, Iola and Kreon were already greeting Heracles. And then there was one of those strange little moments of absolute stillness as Kreon said something and Heracles backed up and then suddenly lurched forward and punched the younger man with angry ferocity. Lucy was aghast when the fight broke out. Her father responded, lurching clumsily after Heracles to return that punch and then receiving yet another for his pains, for Heracles was very fit and fast on his feet for his age. Further violence was only forestalled by the Antonakos bodyguards who stood between the two men to keep them apart. Heracles let out an angry roar of frustration.

  ‘Stay back,’ Jax warned Lucy, striding in to intervene and grip his father by both his arms to restrain him, since it was obvious that none of their staff had the nerve to lay actual hands on their irate employer.

  All red in the face and still patently desperate for a fight, Heracles roared something angry in Greek. Jax stole a glimpse at the guests piling through the entrance doors and then stopping dead to stare at the spectacle and he suppressed a groan. He said something to his father and shepherded him over to a door of the private room. Pushing open the door, he gestured to Lucy’s father to follow him. Looking reluctant but red-faced and more than a little embarrassed, Kreon finally did so. Jax was trying to sort the argument out, Lucy recognised ruefully while wondering what Heracles Antonakos had against her father that had so overpowered his manners.

  ‘Men!’ Iola proclaimed dramatically at her elbow, making Lucy emit a startled laugh. ‘Thank heaven, Jax got them out of sight.’

  ‘What sparked off that punch?’ Lucy demanded in bewilderment.

  ‘Apparently Kreon and Jax’s father have some past history. Kreon didn’t go into detail but it’s obvious that Jax’s father hates him and almost didn’t come to his son’s wedding because he knew Kreon would be here.’ Iola rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t let it spoil your day.’

  ‘I shan’t,’ Lucy responded, stroking Bella’s curls distractedly while thinking that family relations promised to be taxing with their fathers at odds.

  With Iola by her side, Lucy welcomed guests and chatted until she saw Heracles and Kreon emerge again together with drinks in their hands and actually speaking to each other. But when Jax strode back to join her, raw tension was still stamped on his lean, darkly handsome features.

  ‘Evidently you’re quite successful in the peacemaker stakes,’ Lucy remarked as he steered her into the function room to take their seats, mercifully moving her right before she had to greet Kat Valtinos, who looked ravishing in a cutaway emerald dress teamed with feathers in her hair.

  ‘No, they achieved that without any help from me. I only stayed to ensure that hostilities didn’t break out again,’ Jax admitted. ‘You still haven’t met my father and I need to explain what happened out there.’

  ‘Don’t break the habit of a lifetime and tell me something,’ Lucy urged with helpless sarcasm.

  ‘It’s not something I want to talk about but I must,’ Jax breathed stiffly. ‘However, it’s old history and nothing to do with us. No doubt you’re wondering why my father went for yours…’

  ‘Kreon does seem to be an acquired taste with some people.’

  ‘This is not a teasing matter,’ Jax censured.

  As she settled down beside him at the top table Lucy was watching Heracles Antonakos make their daughter’s acquaintance. Bella was fearless and she stared up at the older man and handed him her stuffed rabbit. Heracles’s craggy face broke into a sudden unexpected smile and he sat down with Iola by his side and accepted the rabbit to make it walk across the seat beside him. Bella started to giggle and clutched at the leg of his trousers to stay upright.

  ‘He likes Bella,’ Lucy noted with satisfaction, willing to overlook and forgive a great deal if her daughter was accepted and appreciated.

  ‘He loves children.’ Jax fell broodingly silent and she glanced curiously at his lean, taut profile, helplessly admiring the classic perfection of it. ‘My father discovered after my brother, Argo, died that he could not have been his child. Argo needed a transfusion after the attack and I suspect it was discovered in the minutes before he died that he did not share my father’s or my rare blood group.’

  Lucy’s eyes widened because she was completely disconcerted by that bombshell. ‘My goodness, Heracles must have been devastated to find that out—’

  ‘Particularly as he idolised his first wife and despised my mother…and me…for my mother’s infidelity. When he found out that he hadn’t fathered Argo he immediately suspected your father because of the close friendship Kreon had had with Sofia.’

  Lucy winced. ‘I honestly don’t think it was that sort of friendship.’

  ‘It wasn’t. Kreon saw Sofia as a little sister. His mother, your grandmother on Kreon’s side, was Sofia’s nanny and as children Kreon and Sofia spent a lot of time together,’ Jax told her. ‘Unfortunately having married Sofia my father distrusted their friendship and became jealous.’

  ‘In other words, your father is an old dinosaur who can’t credit that a man and a woman can have a platonic friendship,’ Lucy commented, still watching Heracles as he lifted Bella onto his knee with careful hands.

  ‘I wouldn’t appreciate my wife being that friendly with another man either,’ Jax admitted.

  ‘Sadly I don’t currently have any close male friends to torment you with.’ Lucy sighed with unhidden regret on that score.

  ‘You’re a little witch,’ Jax growled, running his forefinger along the lush line of her full lower lip. ‘Why does that make me want to kiss you again?’

  ‘You love a challenge?’ Lucy whispered unevenly, meeting those stunning green eyes in a head-on clash and feeling more than a little dizzy with excitement, her lips parting.

  ‘But I don’t enjoy an audience,’ Jax countered, running a finger back and forth across the delicate bones of her wrist below the level of the table.

  Lucy was breathing in rapid shallow little gusts, insanely conscious of her body responding to him on every level. She could feel her breasts full and constricted within the bodice of her dress, her distended nipples pushing hard against the scratchy lace of her bra and then there was the tight locked-down tension and heat between her thighs, not to mention the dulled little throb there that made her ache and stiffen her posture.

  ‘It’s showtime—but not for what we want,’ Jax murmured drily as Iola took a seat beside him and Heracles settled down beside Lucy with Bella still on his knee.

  ‘She’s very cute,’ Heracles said of her daughter. ‘She knows what she wants.’

  ‘Mum… Mum,’ Bella framed, lurching straight off Jax’s father into her mother’s arms and flopping down sleepily.

  ‘She needs a nap,’ Lucy sighed.

  ‘Where’s the nanny I hired for the day?’ Jax asked.

  The older woman was already approaching Lucy, ready to take the tired toddler off her hands, but Lucy stood up. ‘I’ll come upstairs with you and get her settled.’

  ‘Your bride doesn’t take hints, does she?’ Heracles remarked with some amusement to his son. ‘You’ll have your hands full with the two of them.’

  Jax, who very much wanted to follow his bride upstairs and have her settle him down, grimaced. ‘I know it.’

  ‘Well, you can’t make worse choices than I did. I won’t say anything more,’ his father declared piously. ‘With my track record, I can’t afford to preach, can I?’

  ‘No, you can’t.’

  ‘Three marriages ending in one death and two divorces and your mother was almost as bad. We didn’t set you much of an example, did we?’ Heracles sighed heavily. ‘By the way, I’ve set up the island for your honeymoon—’

  Thoroughly taken aback, Jax frowned. ‘But you live on Tifnos,’ Jax objected, because he had been planning to take Lucy cruising round the Mediterranean on the yacht.

  ‘Tifnos is yours now that you’re a father. It was built to be a family home and I’m tired of living there alone in that great barn of a house. I’v
e signed it over to you and I’m in the process of buying an estate outside Athens,’ the older man told him in a tone of finality. ‘It’s time for me to step back and make room for the next generation.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  LUCY CAME OUT of the room where she had left the nanny watching over Bella and smiled at the sight of Kreon waiting for her. ‘Dad? What are you doing up here?’ she asked with a grin. ‘Are you trying to escape all the polite chit-chat? Or have you heard a rumour that the food’s going to be bad?’

  Kreon shifted uneasily on his feet, his face grave and troubled. ‘I have done something wrong and it concerns you.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Lucy laughed as he urged her into an alcove with seats.

  ‘Talking to Heracles made me see stuff…differently.’ Her father selected his words with an air of discomfiture as he sat down. ‘It made me appreciate that we’ve all had our tragedies and our triumphs but it’s how we deal with them that makes us who we are. I’d like to be proud of who I am but right now I’m not.’

  Lucy narrowed her eyes in confusion. ‘You don’t sound like yourself.’

  ‘Jax’s father neglected Jax because he despised Jax’s mother, whom he divorced. He knows he can never make it up to Jax and he has to live with it every day, knowing that all those years he left his boy to deal alone with a very difficult woman,’ Kreon told her.

  ‘But you and I have a different history,’ Lucy reasoned, tucking that fresh information about Jax into her memory to take out and ponder at a more suitable time. ‘You didn’t even know that my mother was pregnant when you left London and she didn’t tell you later when she could have done—’

  ‘That’s not what I’m talking about,’ Kreon told her heavily. ‘For many years I hated Heracles Antonakos because he put me down over my friendship with his wife. I’m ashamed to admit that I took my resentment out on his son.’

  Lucy’s smooth brow had furrowed. ‘In what way?’