Mail-order Bridegroom Part 51

His blue eyes were as clear as a rock pool. She could see her own reflection.

"That means everything to me, Marsh. Your total trust and commitment. Youhaven't even heard the full story.""Darling, if it's all the same to you, I really don't want to know,"Marsh said with dry humour."I'd like to drive Kim into the desert and leave her there. She's supposed to be Di's friend yet she couldn't care less about upsetting her."

"I'd say from Di's tone that's truly sunk in. Chris might have a timecalming her. It's really terrible the tickets he has on himself."Marsh looked at her, tipped her chin, smiled."Hey, it's our party remember?""I love you," she said, the last barrier down, her most secret thought uttered.

"Say that again!" His blue eyes glittered with such an extraordinary lightshe felt irradiated."I said, I love you. I love you. I love you. Forever and ever!"His arms closed around her, a little rough, a little fierce."You've taken your time.""I was wounded. Marsh.""Tell me you're healed?"

She stared up at his beloved face; a face of pa.s.sion and power.

"As long as you allow me to become part of you."

His arms tightened urgently.

"But, Rosa, you've always been that. You must know. You're the flame in myheart. The love of my life. That's all there is to it, what we've alwaysknown in our souls. We love each other."

"Why has it been so difficult to say it?"

"We lost a little trust in each other for a time. We let too much of the paststand in our way, but that's all over. You're going to bloom as my wife,Rosa. I want to love and cherish you and give you all the things you've beendenied. I want you to become my partner in all things. I want you to useand display your gifts. I want our children. Our mutual creations. You're the only woman in my life, my adored Rosa."

"You used to be a fantastic lover!" she whispered.

"Used to be?" he said, laughing.

"I'd better tell you" -- "Kiss me," she begged with loving intensity.

"I need you to" -- "Lord, Rosa!" he muttered, his handsome face taut withhigh emotion.

He kissed her then, elated by the response he met. She was beautiful. beautiful. her mouth a flower that opened for him. He had dreamed of the day she would tell him she loved him again. He couldn't fully express hislove. Not tonight. Nor the next. Part of the manifestation of their love was something spiritual. In just under a month they would be married onMac.u.mba. Their wedding night would be one they would remember forever."Marsh!" Roslyn gasped, almost overcome by the blaze that had sprung upbetween them.

"Just showing you how it's going to be." He placed his hands on the sides of her face, his thumbs tracing the lovely line of her jaw.

"Remember our secret place?" he murmured.

Irresistibly Roslyn's mind turned back.

"How lonely I've been for it.

A billion desert stars, the white limbs of the ghost gums glowing in the purple night, the scent of the boron ia and the lovely little mauve mist that grew in great numbers around the lagoon, the crunch of the sand beneath us, the wind song at intervals whistling through the trees. I used to dream of it endlessly. Our magic place. Our magic time. We belonged then. But we were torn apart. "

"We've reclaimed our dream, Rosa," Marsh said with great depth of feeling.

"Just as we can reclaim our supremely beautiful secret place. We can go back on our wedding night. It would be easy to slip away."

She was quiet for a moment, afraid she might cry. "That would be perfect^ "

So, it's a date? "

"It's a promise!" Her golden eyes filled with a radiant light. .

Marsh bent his dark head, claiming her mouth in a kiss that began slowly then surged into desire.

All this Justine saw as she bustled into the room having dealt with young Marcy, who was still feeling the effects of her earlier dip, and Kim and Craig who had made a swift exit on the verge of a few words. Justine had nearly wept with relief. She was an absolute dolt allowing Kim to come.

"Darlings, darlings!" she cried, and got through to them on the fourth try.

"Plenty of time for all that. Decades and decades! Everyone wants to know where you are."

"Just a quiet moment together, Ju-Ju," Marsh said languorously, lifting his handsome head.

"And tremendously touching it was, too!" She smiled indulgently.

"But we must return to our guests. Marsh, would you mind having a word with the band? They don't seem to be paying any attention tolan The volume is enough to loosen your fillings. Ros, you might like to touch up your lipstick. Marsh seems to have kissed it off. Honestly, I haven't felt so good in years. Tonight has been wonderful but you've no idea how much I'm looking forward to the wedding."

Marsh's blue eyes met Roslyn's over his sister's tawny head.

"Never as much as we are," he said.

THE ALEXAKIS BRIDE.

by anne mcallbter

CHAPTER ONE.

"A man can never have too many women."

Damon Alexakis could remember his father saying that as far back as he wasable to recall. The old man's rich baritone practically caressed the wordsas he said them. And then he would look at his only son and give him aconspiratorial wink.

At the ripe old age of thirty-four, when a single man in possession of allthe right instincts might most likely have been expected to concurwholeheartedly, Damon Alexakis begged to differ.

It wasn't that he didn't like women. He did. The sort he could take to dinner, take to bed, and forget about the next morning.

It was the other women who were the bane of his existence the women Aristotle Alexakis had most adored.

But then Aristotle had never been surrounded by and responsible for a widowedmother and six count them, six h.e.l.lish sisters. Not to mention five-yearold twin nieces.

The old man had died when Damon was only eighteen, while the girls were stillcharming everyone in sight. His father, Damon often thought grimly, didn'tknow what he'd missed.

Now, as Damon drummed his pen on the top of his broad teak desk, then stareddistractedly out the window at the midtown New York skyline, he wished, notfor the first time, that he were an orphaned only child.

He could have done without them all without his 6 THE ALEXAKIS BRIDE.

mother, who was trying to settle him down and provide him with the PerfectAlexakis Bride, without Pandora who had lately dashed off with a shifty LasVegas blackjack dealer, without Electra who was shedding her clothes in thatoff-colour, off-off-off Broadway production in the name of art, without Chloewho had taken off for darkest Africa without a word, without Daphne who'dbought all those chinchillas on the hoof because she was sorry for them andnot because they'd make lovely coats, without Arete who just this morning hadstalked into his office and quit to take a job with Strahan Brothers, Importers, his biggest compet.i.tors, and most especially, at the moment,without his eldest sister, Sophia, whose pregnancy was at presentcomplicating his life.

Why, Damon lifted his eyes and asked the heavens, should any man have toworry about his sister's pregnancy? Why shouldn't it be her husband'sproblem?

Because, he answered on behalf of the heavens, her husband, Stephanos, wasthe problem.

He and Kate McKee.

Kate McKee.

The woman even sounded like trouble. A fiery and frolicsome t.i.tian-hairedtemptress--exactly the sort of woman that his philandering brother-in-lawwould be eager to take to bed.

Had no doubt already taken to bed, Damon reminded himself savagely, stabbinghis pen into the desk blotter.

All those other mother's helpers Stephanos had hired- Stacy and Tracy andCasey and whoever else had come and gone keeping an eye on his and Sophia'simpish twins in the last two months--had been mere red herrings.

It was Kate McKee whom Stephanos had been intent on installing in his and Sophia's Park Avenue apartment. And in his bed.

Damon knew he should have been suspicious from the moment Stephanos had announced that the doctor recommended a nanny. His brother-in-law was never eager to lay out a penny more than necessary, much less voluntarily pay someone to help not him but his wife.

But Stephanos had been all soulful eyes and deep concern when he'd come into Damon's office that afternoon two months ago.

"The doctor is worried about Sophia. He says she's in danger of miscarrying.

She needs someone to keep an eye on the twins."

"I'll take care of it," Damon had promised, phone against his ear. He scratched Sophia's name on a pad at the same time he was trying to catch the particulars on a crystal shipment due from Venice that afternoon.

But Stephanos had given Damon an airy wave of his hand.

"It's not your problem. I'm just telling you. I'll interview the girls myself."

Damon ground his teeth now. He should have known better. Everything that even vaguely affected the lives of any of the Alexakis women ended up being his problem sooner or later!

What the h.e.l.l was he going to do about her?

Fire her tail. That was what he'd like to do. He'd like to drop-kick her from here to Siberia, and send his miserable brother-in-law spiralling the South Pole while he was at it.

He couldn't.

Because Sophia, heaven help him, adored her dear Miss Kate!

"She's such a competent person. So clever. So cheerful. And she takes such good care of the girls. You can't know what a relief it is.

Knowing Kate's in charge makes me feel so much better. " Sophia had said all that to him just this morning.

She'd said other equally enthusiastic things about her husband's mistress in the past two weeks. But then Damon hadn't realised what Stephanos was up to.

Now he knew. He'd heard the rum ours like everyone else. Except so far,

thank G.o.d, Sophia. He was going to make sure she never heard them.

And he'd have loved to deal with both Stephanos and his lady love in the way they so richly deserved, except-- "The doctor says I'm doing much better since Kate came," Sophia had gone on to say.

"She makes all the difference. I don't know what I'd do without Kate."So his hands were tied. For the moment at least.But that didn't mean he was going to tolerate such underhanded goings-on.

There was no way he was going to stand by and watch his brother-in-law make a

fool of Sophia.

His hands clenched into fists as he contemplated what he'd like to do to Stephanos. Would the competent Miss McKee find her lover quite so attractive with his face rearranged?

But again, he couldn't do that.

Because Sophia would find out.

And now, of all times, the high-strung Sophia needed shielding.

No, he couldn't shift Stephanos's nose for him, and he couldn't blacken his

eyes. But he could do a little bit of rearranging.And Damon intended to start with Kate McKee's expectations!The phone buzzed. He picked it up, cradling it against his shoulder."I thought you'd gone home," he said to Lilian, his secretary."I live here," Lilian said drily."We both do."

"It seems like it," Damon admitted."What's up?""Your mother. On line two.""Now?" He glanced at his watch, frowning."It's almost two in the morning in Athens." He sighed."All right. Put her through."He wondered what disaster had befallen Helena Alexakis this time. His mother was the original clinging vine, a woman who counted on her man to solveeverything. And since her husband had died, she never made a move withoutdiscussing it with her son. Except, Damon thought grimly, in the case of hersearch for his perfect bride.

"Damon? Is that you, my son? You are not home? You are still working?""Yes, Mama, I'm still working. What's wrong?""Nothing. Not one little thing." He could hear her good cheer even above the transatlantic crackle on the line.

"I'm calling to tell you the good news."

Damon straightened up, flexing his shoulders, smiling, too, relieved that for

once there was no problem. "Good news, Mama? What's that?""I am coming to New York." A dramatic pause."And I am bringing Marina.""Your brother wants to meet me?" Kate stopped paring the apple she held in her hand and looked at her employer a bit dubiously.