The Volakis Vow: Bride For Real Part 2

'The hunger is still there between us, moli mou,' Sander growled. 'As strong as ever ...'

His dark deep drawl vibrated down her taut spinal cord and she glanced up from below feathery lashes and connected warily with hot golden eyes that challenged her. Her nipples tingled and swelled and she froze in disbelief that she could still be so susceptible to his allure.

'You know exactly what I'm talking about,' Sander p.r.o.nounced with satisfaction.

But Tally was determined not to listen. Convinced that the more heed she paid him, the more likely it was that she would do something foolish again, she was determined to escape. Flipping the case that she had begun packing the day before open again, she began to settle a pile of garments into it.

'You can't just walk away and pretend this didn't happen,' Sander breathed levelly.

'I can do whatever I blasted well want!' Tally flared back, shooting his lean, strong profile a defiant glance.

Raking impatient fingers through his black, spiky hair, Sander dealt her a narrow-eyed intent appraisal. His dark eyes, sharp as knives, brought goose flesh up on her bare arms in spite of the warm temperature. 'One way or another I'll get you back, yineka mou.'

'I don't think so,' Tally fielded flatly, her small face stiff with self-discipline as she flipped down the lid on the case and closed it. 'We'll be divorced in a couple of months. I don't want anything else from this place. This is the past and I've moved on-'

'Only an hour ago you were happily reliving that past,' Sander murmured, smooth as silk.

'Everybody makes mistakes and you're mine,' Tally retorted curtly, heading for the door as fast as her legs would carry her.

Sander intercepted her and removed the case from her hold to carry it downstairs for her. 'A mistake you evidently enjoyed repeating,' he traded softly.

Guilty colour ran like a banner into her cheeks as she locked the case into the boot of the car outside. Tormenting images of Sander with other women were playing over and over again inside her head, acting like a refined sort of torture on her vulnerable mind. Mounting distress at those wounding inner pictures made her hand shake as she searched for her keys in her bag.

Frowning down at her, because he was an observant man, Sander rested a lean hand on the driver's door. 'Are you sure that you're feeling well enough to drive?'

'I'm perfectly fine.' Annoyed that she had not contrived to fool him with her facade of calm, Tally jumped into the car without further ado, terrified that she might betray her insecurity in other ways.

'You're running away again, just like you did when you walked out on our marriage,' Sander condemned bleakly.

'I'm being sensible!' Tally contradicted in fierce disagreement and slammed the door shut.

As she drove off she refused to allow herself a backward glance at his tall powerful figure in the driving mirror. That would have been surrendering to weakness and she was ashamed enough of her behaviour over the past twelve hours to feel that she had to withstand even that minor temptation.

All the while she was thinking of the many times in her life when she'd had to be tough and control emotions that seemed stronger than those of other people. When she was still a child she had often longed for unconditional love from those close to her. Binkie, of course, had loved Tally, but even at a young age Tally had appreciated that Binkie was in a different category as an employee, a housekeeper and childminder, paid by Tally's mother to do a job. Either the people Tally loved did not have the capacity to love that strongly or she herself did not have the special je ne sais quoi that inspired that depth of feeling in others. Yet she knew that when she loved people she loved with her whole heart and usually got badly hurt.

The most important person in her mother's, Crystal's, world, however, was generally the current man in her life. But then Crystal Spencer was very much a man's woman and as mother and daughter shared few interests both women had learned to compromise in their expectations of each other. Equally, Tally's father, Anatole, had always made it obvious that he was ashamed of his elder daughter's illegitimate birth and, since he was a man to whom appearances meant a great deal, he had never been prepared to openly acknowledge her as his child. The feelings of his current wife, who had long preferred to pretend Tally didn't exist, were much more important to him.

Had that unfortunate background encouraged her to look for too much support and attention from Sander? Tally asked herself suddenly. Had she been too needy in their relationship? Had she expected too much from a young man thrust into marriage and parenthood when he had not, at first, chosen to freely embrace either? Her ruminations about her marriage always seemed to return to the same cruel fact: when Tally had fallen pregnant her father had blackmailed Sander into marrying her by threatening the stability of Volakis Shipping. Even though Sander had later insisted that he wanted to stay married to Tally, the truth of the terms on which their marriage had initially been built was a humiliation that could never be ignored or forgotten.

Yet she had loved Sander so much in those days that she had closed her eyes to the flaws in their relationship. He had not loved her, nor had he pretended to do so. He had wanted her, supported her, cared for her, entertained her in and out of bed, but he had never felt for her the depth of emotion that she had felt for him. And that heart-rending truth had ensured that right from the start Tally felt like the lesser and weaker partner in their marriage.

With every kilometre of French autoroute that she travelled along, taking her further and further from Sander, Tally was increasingly conscious of a tight, funny ache inside that felt remarkably like the pain of intense loss. She suppressed the sensation, fighting its worrying pull on her disordered senses. That was only her imagination overreacting, she told herself impatiently.

But why was Sander so keen to get her back? Her tough Greek husband was such a macho guy. Was it simply his possessive streak? Was he like a dog with a discarded bone he wanted n.o.body else to touch? Had his belief that she was now with Robert Miller powered Sander's desire to reclaim his wife? It was a desire that astonished her, for she knew his parents had probably heaved a sigh of relief when their son's marriage failed. She had not impressed her sn.o.bbish in-laws as an acceptable wife for their only surviving son. Her illegitimacy and downmarket background had offended them. When she and Sander had still been happy together, his parents' att.i.tude had seemed unimportant because, aside of Petros Volakis working with Sander in the family business, the older couple had taken very little interest in their son or his wife during their brief marriage. Nor had they attended the sad little funeral for their infant grandchild, choosing to send only a card expressing conventional regret.

While Tally waited to board the ferry at the cross-channel port, she realised that she was looking forward to the prospect of her mother's company in London because she was in no mood to be on her own. What had happened with Sander, however, she resolved to keep entirely to herself. Fortunately, she was not so involved with Robert that she owed him any kind of an explanation either. The less time she spent agonising over events that she could not change, the happier she would be, she decided doggedly.

Unfortunately, when Tally returned to London she found her mother to be in a brittle, evasive mood and more interested in looking up all her old friends than spending time with her only child. Just a week later, however, Tally called in at her apartment to pick up a colour swatch she had forgotten and walked into the midst of an astonishing scene. A stockily built older man in a suit was telling her sobbing mother that tears weren't going to change anything ...

'What the heck is going on here?' Tally demanded on the threshold of the room.

Wild-eyed, Crystal flung her a daughter a startled look and, emitting a strangled sob, she scrambled upright and fled into her bedroom without another word.

In bewilderment Tally directed her attention to her mother's visitor instead. 'Maybe you could tell me what this is about?'

'I'm afraid that I'm not at liberty to do so. This is a very confidential matter,' the older man responded starchily as he lifted his briefcase and headed for the door. 'I've left my contact details on the table. Perhaps when Miss Spencer has had the chance to consider her options she will call me.'

Mystified, Tally saw him out and then sped back into the lounge to lift his business card and frown down at it: Henry Fellows. He was a solicitor and she had never heard of him before. Rapping her knuckles lightly on the door of the guest room, Tally went in.

Standing by the window with defensively folded arms, her mother shot her an apprehensive glance from reddened eyes. 'Has he gone yet?'

'Yes, he's gone. What did he want with you?'

Crystal's slim shoulders drooped. 'I might as well tell you because you'll find out soon enough. Roger is threatening me with the police.'

Aghast, Tally stared at the older woman. 'The ... police? Roger? What on earth are you talking about?'

The story that Crystal began to tell was not entirely unexpected. Over the years, Tally's mother had often got into financial trouble and Tally was not surprised to learn that the older woman had been in debt when she first moved in with the retired businessman, Roger Tailford, in Monaco.

'At the beginning I managed to keep up payments on what I owed out of the allowance that Roger gave me for clothes.'

'Couldn't you have told Roger the truth?' Tally asked ruefully.

'Roger was very puritanical about money and I knew he would think less of me if he ever found out, so I kept it a secret,' Crystal admitted grudgingly. 'But then the interest kept on rising and the payments got steeper so I was desperate for more money ... and one day I forged Roger's signature on a cheque and managed to cash it. He insisted on still using cheques-he was very old-fashioned that way. He didn't hold with debit cards, online banking and the like ...'

Tally was studying the tear-stained older woman fixedly. 'Did you say that you forged Roger's signature on a cheque? That's a crime!'

'I'm not stupid. I know that, but it kept the peace between Roger and I and he was so well-off he never missed the money ...'

'Are you saying that you did it more than once?' Tally pressed in horror.

'I was in debt to my eyeb.a.l.l.s!' Crystal cried defensively. 'I had to keep the creditors away from the door somehow!'

'But it was stealing! Surely you can see that?' her daughter challenged her. 'You were stealing from Roger! Why was that solicitor here?'

'Roger's accountant questioned some of the cheques and Roger found out what I'd done. That's why we broke up-he threw me out!' Crystal sobbed. 'He sent the solicitor here to tell me that he won't prosecute me for the forged cheques if I repay all the money I took.'

Tally was ashen pale. 'How much money are we talking about?'

Her mother mentioned a sum that made Tally gasp: it was a much larger sum than she might have expected. Having got away with her initial theft, Crystal had become bolder and had begun dipping into Roger's account whenever she had overspent or needed more money. In the course of two years she had helped herself to a pretty substantial amount of cash. Tally was appalled by the total.

'Are you able to pay back anything?' Tally asked worriedly, a look of hope in her eyes.

'I haven't a penny,' Crystal confessed dully. 'I've never had savings. You know that.'

'Well, when it comes to ready cash, I can't help you. What I have is in the business and I'm bound by my partnership with Robert to leave it there,' Tally volunteered unhappily. 'And in the current economic climate, I'll never get a loan for that amount. There's only one thing for it: we'll have to ask my father for help-'

'Don't waste your time. Anatole would probably love it if I was sent to prison for theft.'

That night, when Tally phoned her father, she was relieved that he didn't laugh when she told him about her mother's predicament, but he didn't sound sympathetic either. 'Why don't you approach your husband for a.s.sistance? Oh, yes, I forgot. You got bored with him and walked out on your marriage ...'

Smarting at his sarcasm, Tally muttered, 'It wasn't like that.'

But it was very clear that Anatole wasn't interested in hearing her side of that story. As far as he was concerned, when he had put pressure on Sander to wed his daughter because she was pregnant he had helped Tally make a 'good' marriage and in leaving her husband she had recklessly thrown away her golden opportunity.

'Look, I'll be in London on Wednesday,' he told her abruptly. 'I'll meet you for lunch at the usual place. One o'clock.'

And with that unantic.i.p.ated invitation, Tally had to be content while she wondered if there was any real prospect of her father offering his help in order to save Crystal from what he would undoubtedly see as her just deserts. She was well aware of how much her father had resented having to maintain Crystal throughout the years of his older daughter's childhood. When she got back from a day spent working out a new interior scheme for a client who was infuriatingly given to changing her mind every five minutes, she found her mother sitting in floods of tears at the kitchen table.

'That solicitor phoned: Roger is planning to call in the police on Monday. That's my deadline,' Crystal advanced in tremulous explanation, fastening frightened eyes to her daughter's frowning face. 'Oh, Tally, what am I going to do? Your father will never help me. He probably just invited you to lunch so that he can hear the dirty details and gloat.'

'Let's hope for the best,' Tally responded, grimacing at the reality that her parents so thoroughly disliked each other. Though she'd had an affair while she was engaged to and pregnant by Anatole, Crystal had pursued Anatole through the courts to receive maintenance for their daughter. In any case, Tally had never known her father to act out of compa.s.sion. Anatole Karydas was first and foremost a businessman and he hadn't made money out of being a soft touch. On the other hand, he was the only hope Crystal had, Tally reflected unhappily: she could scarcely approach Sander for financial help while she was pursuing a divorce he had said he didn't want.

'I've got a proposition to put to you,' Anatole, a small portly man with iron-grey hair and shrewd dark eyes, informed his daughter within minutes of her joining him at his table at his favourite Italian restaurant. 'I'll give you the money for Crystal, no questions asked, but only if you agree to go back and live with your husband.'

Completely taken aback by that offer, which had come out of nowhere, Tally froze, her eyes very wide. 'You've got to be joking!'

'I don't joke about serious matters. I valued having a connection to the Volakis tribe-they're very important well-connected people in Athens-'

'How can that influence you? n.o.body there even knows that I'm your daughter.'

Anatole compressed his lips in disagreement. 'A lot of my friends and business colleagues know about you now. Sander's parents let the cat out of the bag, so you're not a secret any more. And why should you be?' he remarked in a sudden burst of irritation that took her aback. 'I would be very happy to see you go back to live with your husband.'

'That's ridiculous-'

'No, it's not, it's sensible and still the best option you have,' he contradicted with conviction. 'I don't want you ending up like your mother, living off one man and then another, until you end up in the gutter and start stealing to get by. I want my daughter to enjoy a normal decent life, and Sander Volakis can give you that.'

Tally was shattered by that little speech because it had never once in all the years she had known her father occurred to her that he might cherish a genuine concern for her well-being. Certainly he had never revealed such an interest in her welfare before. Green eyes reflecting her surprise, she stared at the older man with a frown building between her brows.

'I know I've not been a proper father to you, that I've made mistakes and let my dislike of your mother and my respect for my wife's wishes come between us,' Anatole admitted grittily, evading her startled scrutiny. 'But I won't stand by and watch you burn your boats with Sander Volakis if I can help it. So, if you want that money to save Crystal's worthless skin, you can have it, but you have to give your marriage another chance for at least a year.' He hesitated. 'What happened with your child was tragic but, given time, you'll get over it and start again.'

Shaken, Tally felt her eyes sting with hot tears at that blunt reference. 'Sander's parents didn't seem to care ...'

Her father touched her hand in a brief awkward gesture and then looked away, his discomfiture obvious in the humming silence. But it was clear to her that even though he did not have the words he had felt a good deal more than Sander's parents when he'd learned of her stillborn son, who would have been his first grandchild. 'Well, will you accept my offer?'

Wildly disconcerted by a choice she had never envisaged, Tally said thinly that she couldn't make up her mind there and then. Ironically, although she was furious that Anatole was trying to manipulate her now as he had once manipulated Sander, she could not help feeling touched that her father was concerned in his own way about her future. And how could she stand back and allow her mother to be charged and possibly even imprisoned for fraud? The law came down hard on women who were dishonest with money, she acknowledged worriedly, particularly a spoiled woman like Crystal who had not held down a paying job in more years than her daughter cared to count. Tally also knew that her mother could not be allowed to go on running up debts that she couldn't afford while struggling to maintain a lifestyle that she should have abandoned years earlier. She was painfully aware at that moment that she would have to instigate changes in Crystal's life in return for advancing Anatole's money. To ignore the roots of Crystal's problem would be to invite the same situation to happen again.

'Yes ... I'll accept,' Tally finally conceded in a tense undertone. She refused to think in any depth about the marriage that she was agreeing to return to and simply accepted that she was putting her pride and independence on a funeral pyre.

She couldn't face phoning Sander and hearing the triumph edge his slow dark drawl, so she texted him like a teenager determined to avoid confrontation.

Have changed my mind. Willing to try being married again.

Sander phoned her while she was waiting for her mother to return from a shopping trip. 'I'll pick you up for dinner-'

'No ... er ... I'm busy tonight. Mum's staying with me at present,' she explained hurriedly. 'I'll pack and see you tomorrow at the apartment-'

'I sold the apartment last year and bought a house.' Sander reeled off the address, his Greek accent roughening every vowel sound. 'Tally ... you won't regret this.'

Momentarily, Tally was discomfited. Sander had a.s.sumed that she was returning to him of her own free will. That was far from being the case but she saw no good reason to admit the ugly truth. What would it achieve? She was methodically packing her things when Crystal came home. Joining the older woman in the lounge, she was quick to share the news that her father was willing to settle Crystal's debt to Roger.

Crystal was stunned. 'I never thought Anatole would play the good Samaritan.'

'There's a price-for both of us. I had to agree to give my marriage another go,' Tally volunteered. 'And, before we go any further, you have to agree to get a job.'

'A job?' Crystal gasped in ringing disbelief. 'What on earth would I do?'

'You won't find out until you try. Maybe you could work in the beauty or cosmetics fields ... I don't know exactly what you'd do but, whatever, you need to get a job and earn enough money to keep yourself.'

'I couldn't!'

'Of course you can. You don't need another man to keep you. You'll have no credit card bills to worry about this time around. We'll cut the cards up and you'll do what other people do: live on a budget, not beyond your means.'

Crystal blinked. 'You're out of your mind.'

'No, I'm telling you the only way that this will work for you. This-Anatole coming to the rescue-is a once-in-a-lifetime deal,' Tally was careful to stress. 'It's going to be tough for you to make a fresh start and leave old habits behind, but you're stronger than you think. Things have to change. You can't go on spending money you don't have.'

'Well, I could, if my wealthy daughter chose to help me out,' Crystal dared with more than a hint of her usual calculation.

'No, I'm not going to ask Sander to foot all your bills. That wouldn't be fair,' Tally fielded unhappily. 'Isn't it enough that I'm being forced to return to a marriage I had already turned my back on?'

'You can't fool me,' Crystal breathed witheringly. 'I don't believe you'll ever turn your back willingly on Sander Volakis. He's the love of your life!'

Crystal remained in an edgy, sharp-tongued mood as she fought the prospect of being self-supporting; but, by the end of the evening, Tally had secured her agreement to seek employment and felt satisfied with that climb-down as a first step in a new lifestyle.

The next day, Robert was astonished when Tally brought him up to speed on events. 'You're going back to live with Sander Volakis? Since when?'

'When we met at the house in France he asked me to give our marriage another chance,' Tally admitted tautly. 'I've thought about it and I've decided he's right-'

'But he's wrong!' Robert Miller protested in sudden anger. 'You were unhappy with him.'

'Things only went wrong between us after we lost our child.'

'But what about us? What about me?' Robert demanded feelingly.

'We haven't moved beyond friendship,' Tally reasoned uncomfortably.

'And whose fault is that? You were determined to wait for your divorce to come through!' Robert's blue eyes shone bright with resentment.

Tally's posture became taut because her tender conscience was tw.a.n.ging. 'We still have to work together. Let's not have bad feeling between us.'

'We're business partners and that won't be changing.' Robert swore with unnecessary vehemence. 'You can tell Volakis from me that there's no way I'll ever allow him to buy me out of Tallulah Design!'

After that emotional confrontation, which left Tally wondering unhappily if she was guilty of having misled Robert, she felt utterly wrung out ...