The Volakis Vow: Bride For Real Part 7

And without the smallest warning of his intent, Sander reached for her. Stunning golden eyes smouldering like flames below the fringe of his lush black lashes, he banded his arms round her to lock her into contact with his lean muscular length and, lowering his arrogant dark head, he kissed her with a studied eroticism she would not have been able to resist two days earlier. But there was a cold, unresponsive stone inside her where her heart had once raced and Tally froze and flinched, refusing to feel anything.

Just as suddenly she pushed him away and stepped back to emphasise her point. 'No,' she told him flatly.

'You're here, you're with me,' Sander pointed out huskily. 'Why not?'

Shock and annoyance at being challenged like that ricocheted through Tally. 'You know why not.'

'What's the point of trying to punish me for something that happened well over a year ago while we were living apart?' Sander demanded.

Hectic colour was forced into Tally's cheeks. She could barely credit his nerve, but she also recognised that Sander's hot-blooded libido required little in the way of encouragement. 'I am not trying to punish you, Sander.'

'You're pushing me away again and I won't accept it,' he gritted with a flash of even white teeth against his bronzed skin while he surveyed her with hard masculine tenacity as though she were a puzzle that sufficient contemplation might resolve.

'You may not have a choice.'

'There is always a choice and this is not one that you are going to make for me,' Sander intoned, his Greek accent very strong as he made that admonition. 'You're still my wife-'

Tally folded her arms defensively. 'On paper-'

'Yesterday, we were on a mattress, not on paper,' Sander reminded her with sardonic cool. 'You chose to come back to me. You were willing then to give our marriage another chance.'

That unwelcome reminder made her small face set hard as ice in a polar blast, her pride squirming with mortification. 'It's not quite that simple.'

Sander towered over her, all the stubborn aggression of his strong temperament in his challenging stance. 'It's exactly that simple.'

Angry resentment at the level of his scorching confidence roared through Tally in a dizzy rush and without even pausing to think about it she hit back as hard as she could. 'Well, actually, it's anything but simple. If it wasn't for the pressure that Anatole put on me, I would never have come back to you in the first place!'

Ebony brows pleating in mystification at that declaration, Sander frowned down at her. 'What are you talking about? What's your father got to do with anything?'

And, just as quickly, a sharp pang of regret infiltrated Tally, for she had never intended to tell him that truth.

'Tally ...' Sander prompted impatiently.

She breathed in deep, recognising that she had boxed herself into a corner with her taunt. Now she had no alternative other than to tell him the whole story. 'Mum did something dishonest when she was living in Monaco. She had debts and to pay them she forged cheques that belonged to Roger, the man she was living with. When he found out, he threw her out and sent a solicitor to tell her that if she didn't repay the money she had stolen the police would be involved,' she explained ruefully. 'Of course, Crystal didn't have any money and I wasn't in a position to help either. Everything I've got is tied up in the business.'

Sander was frowning but her admission about Crystal's dishonesty did not appear to have surprised him that much. 'Why didn't you come to me for help? She's your mother and I would've understood.'

'Because, at the end of the day, I'm not sure there's much to choose between you and my father. Neither of you is a fan of the something-for-nothing concept. You're both tough businessmen. My father thinks being married is good for me. He agreed to give me the money to replace what Crystal stole if I agreed to give our marriage another go. Just as Anatole wanted something in return for his generosity, I a.s.sumed that you would as well.'

As she spoke Sander's vibrant skin tone had slowly taken on an ashen shade as his natural healthy colour receded. 'I wouldn't have chosen to hold your mother's fraud over your head and blackmail you into coming back to me.'

Tally looked unimpressed. 'You like to get what you want when you want it. I'm not so sure ...'

'You may be sure in this instance.' His bright eyes flared to a hot gold that positively sizzled between the curling luxuriance of his black lashes. 'I wouldn't b.l.o.o.d.y well want any woman on terms which meant I had to bribe her to be with me!' he shot back at her in fierce reb.u.t.tal. 'That includes you.'

'Oh ... is that a fact?' Tally fielded, although she was more shaken by the strength of his reaction than she was prepared to show.

'I would've given you that money without strings attached,' Sander informed her, still very much taken aback by what he had just learned. 'Crystal is not self-supporting and never has been. I knew that when I married you and I knew she would need my help sooner or later. I'll take care of repaying Anatole.' His dark brows drew together in a heavy frown. 'Is that the only reason you came back to me? Because your father demanded it as condition of your receiving that money?'

Almost energised by the fact that she was the one surprising him for a change, Tally sent him an unapologetic look of challenge. 'Anatole seems to be convinced that if I divorce you I'll end up on my own like Mum and never settle down again. Obviously he likes to see you as a stabilising influence.'

Long black lashes dipping low over his shrewd gaze, Sander swung away, his lean hands clenching into fists as he swallowed back a guttural surge of outraged Greek condemnation. His wily father-in-law was responsible for negotiating his wife's return to his side. That was who he had to thank for his second chance at marriage. Dark fury made Sander light-headed. He wanted to hammer the wall until it cracked beneath the force of his anger and wounded pride. The blood was pulsing hotly through his veins and the pounding behind his brow made him feel as though a steel band were tightening round his temples. It took tremendous self-discipline for him to suppress his rage.

'And what was the price that bought you back into my bed?' Sander murmured with lethal cool, turning back to her with eyes dark as pitch and with no glimmer of volatile gold showing.

'That's not how it was,' Tally protested stiffly, beginning to wish that she had kept her mouth shut and resenting that sarcastic comment calculated to make her feel like a s.l.u.t.

'How much?' Sander pressed with harsh emphasis.

And she told him in the hope of closing the subject.

It was a paltry amount on Sander's terms. He whistled long and low under his breath and rested derisive golden eyes on her strained face. 'No offence intended, but I got you back on the cheap. I'm surprised that you didn't turn to Robert Miller for help. I think he would have enjoyed the opportunity to ride to your rescue like a knight on a white charger.'

'I didn't want to drag Robert into my family problems. Mum was guilty of fraud, she stole ... approaching Robert didn't seem appropriate,' Tally told him uneasily.

'So once again we owe the ongoing fact of our marriage to your father's scheming.' Sander released an un-appreciative laugh. 'Anatole's good at intrigue and so are you, moli mou. It didn't even occur to me to suspect that you might have another motivation when you agreed to come back to me.' His darkly shadowed, strong jaw line hardened, his sensual mouth twisting. 'It's most unlike me to be naive, but clearly I was naive not to appreciate that you have your price like every other woman I've ever met.'

Her colour receded, her fine bone structure prominent as she fought to retain her composure. If it was his intent to make her feel cheap and easy he had succeeded with that cynical crack about her moral fibre. In her heart, Tally had long since accepted that her father's proposition had merely given her the excuse to do what she wanted to do anyway. She had wanted Sander back but, being too proud to admit the fact, had found it easier to tell herself that she was only returning to him because her father had given her no other choice. What did that say about her? The extent of her self-deception shamed her but in the current climate wild horses could not have dragged that truth out of her and made her share it with him. Her head high, her eyes cloaked in self-defence, she spun on her heel and headed back to her room.

Left with his own company again, Sander fought the depth of his outrage and poured a stiff drink. He tried to concentrate on practicalities. Naturally he would have to repay Anatole the sum of money the older man had expended to save Crystal's skin. These days Crystal was more her son-in-law's responsibility than Anatole's. Sander had often suspected that Tally must have suffered a cruelly insecure childhood, for her mother was selfish and irresponsible. Yet Tally had never held Crystal's flaws against her.

In fact, when it came to the people she loved, Tally had a generous and forgiving spirit. Sander had once taken it for granted that his wife loved him but that conviction had died in the aftermath of their child's death. Now he was dismally conscious that he no longer qualified for a place within her select trusted circle, but he was even more aware that he did not want a wife who had not chosen to be with him of her own free will.

By the second drink he was wondering if he was being entirely honest with himself on that score. After all, men had fought for and held onto women who weren't mad about them for centuries. Although, it must have been less of a challenge when a wife had had fewer human rights, he reasoned ruefully.

Not even history, however, demanded that he stand back and allow his wife to entertain her lover at his home. Robert Miller was taking advantage of the situation, coming to call and doubtless planning to strike at the optimum moment. Miller was a tactician. Of course he would strike when Sander's marriage was struggling to survive. It was hard to think of that sad little sc.r.a.p of humanity upstairs being the cause of so much trouble. His daughter, Sander reflected bleakly, was threatening to cost him his marriage but that did not release him from his responsibility towards her. In any case, a more cynical voice reminded him, the reconciliation that he had had such touching faith in had proved to be nothing but hot air. And who was to say how long the reconciliation would have lasted in such circ.u.mstances? Sander squared his broad shoulders, acknowledging the unwelcome truth that Tally had been manipulated by her father into putting her mother's needs ahead of her own. It was a truth that stung his fierce pride like acid. Most probably, Tally had shared his bed in Morocco because s.e.x was part and parcel of any reconciliation ...

CHAPTER NINE.

TALLY awoke after another bad dream with a choking sob trapped in her throat.

In the darkness of a strange room it took her a whole minute to find the bedside light. After turning it on, she withdrew her trembling hand from the switch and breathed in slow and deep in an effort to calm her racing heartbeat. Refusing to toss and turn while she struggled to forget the disturbing images in her nightmare, she decided to get up and make herself a cup of tea. There was no way that she was going to let those bad dreams take over her life again. Sliding out of bed, she put on her wrap and left the room.

Lights illuminated the floor above and for a moment Tally stood still to listen. Sadly, Lili was still crying, although the sound was much more muted than it had been earlier. Beyond it she could hear the deeper tone of an adult voice speaking. In a sudden movement, Tally turned and headed for the stairs to the upper floor. The way she had been behaving, anyone might be forgiven for thinking that she was scared of Oleia's daughter! She was just being nosy, she told herself irritably, and she was also feeling extremely sorry for the youthful nanny who was being left to cope with a baby who would not settle. It was also possible that if she actually saw the baby and put a face to her, she would stop having the nightmare, she reasoned tautly.

But as Tally reached the landing she realised in surprise that the voice she could hear was a man's rather than a woman's. She padded quietly along the corridor and came to a halt when she saw that it was Sander standing with his back to the half-open door and the baby draped like a small sagging sack over one broad shoulder. Ironically it was Sander she found herself staring at then, rather than the child. Her tall, well-built husband was barefoot, clad in well-worn denims and a loose linen shirt, and he was pacing the floor in an apparent attempt to soothe the child.

'Life will get better,' Sander was saying bracingly, one large hand patting Lili's back in a strikingly clumsy gesture while she vented a drowsy moaning complaint against his shoulder. 'I'm good at most things,' he a.s.sured the baby without false humility. 'I may not look like I've got much to offer but I'm a fast learner. If I work at being a father, I will succeed.'

Pleasantly surprised by that determined aspiration on Sander's part, Tally studied the little red swollen face below the hedgehog fuzz of curly black hair. She could see no resemblance to either Oleia or Sander in those features. Another mournful cry escaped Lili, her tiny mouth opening and closing again, her unhappiness unconcealed.

'I know what's important. If you're in trouble I'll always be there for you and even if you're in the wrong I'll still be there for you,' Sander intoned intently, clearly having thought in depth about his future role. 'I won't expect you to be perfect. I won't compare you to anyone else. You can be who you want to be with me.'

Touched by what she was hearing, Tally fell back out of view, reluctant to let him see her listening because she knew it would deeply embarra.s.s him. Everything Sander was so keen to offer Lili clearly and simply emphasised the flaws in his own relationship with his parents and he was obviously very aware of those shortcomings. He had continually been judged second-best to his older brother, t.i.tos, who had died before Tally had come into his life. Indeed, his parents had never seemed to approve of anything Sander did and that had included his decision to marry Tally when she was pregnant. It touched Tally's heart that he was already striving to ensure that he offered his motherless daughter more support than he had ever received.

Having reached certain conclusions that made her feel uncomfortable, Tally was no longer in the mood to seek out a cup of tea and she went straight back to bed. Oleia's daughter was a harmless baby in no way responsible for her parents' behaviour, she reflected ruefully. Lili was a little person in her own right, an unhappy child who had already suffered far too many distressing changes in her short existence. Tally could not resent Lili and yet tears of regret still stung her eyes because she could not help thinking that if their son had survived Sander would have made a fine father to him, too. If he could promise to do what was right by his daughter in the midst of so much conflict, he would hardly have offered less to his first child.

Tally then asked herself the question she had been putting to the back of her mind: how would she feel if she were shortly to discover that she had already fallen pregnant again? They had used no form of contraception in Morocco. The current hitch in her menstrual cycle-she was late-might simply be the result of foreign travel and the emotional upheaval she had suffered. But, on the other hand, it could equally well be the first sign that she had conceived for the second time. On the most basic level her heart leapt at the very idea, but on another level she was distressed by the suspicion that their marriage might already be on the rocks again. If that was true she would not be able to give her child the secure background she had been so keen to supply. In the s.p.a.ce of days, with the revelation of Lili's existence, their lives had changed radically and nothing she could do could change that.

The following morning, Sander had left for his London office by the time that Tally came downstairs. She received several sympathetic texts from her sister, Cosima, which made her think warmly about the younger girl and she arranged to see her the next week. Robert Miller, her business partner, drove up to the house on the stroke of noon in a sleek Aston Martin and suggested they talk over lunch at a local restaurant.

Climbing back into his sports car, Robert dealt her slim figure an appreciative appraisal. 'For someone who has had a tough couple of days you look amazingly well.'

'Thanks.' Her whipped cream skin delicately flushed below the straight fall of her dark marmalade hair, Tally withheld the information that Sander was responsible for her fashionable turquoise skirt and fitted top. He had great taste in clothes and was rather more adventurous with colour than she was. 'I'm very resilient.'

It was a relief when Robert concentrated on business and while they discussed the monthly returns of her design firm at length over a light meal her tension over the questions she had feared he might ask slowly evaporated. She always enjoyed Robert's company and in recent months had wondered on several occasions how she might have felt about Robert had she met him before she met Sander. Tall, dark-haired and with bright blue eyes, he was an attractive man and a very successful one, but he had simply not registered on her feminine radar while Sander was around.

Was she one of those women who preferred a bad boy who set her a challenge? Sander had always been a challenge in one way or another. Volatile and unpredictable, he had once seriously doubted the ties that commitment entailed. Although he had married her he had not fallen in love with her. Yet she had fallen like a ton of bricks for him and suffered accordingly. Or was it more a case of her having made a rod for her own back?

For the first time, Tally looked at the other side of the equation. Had her awareness that he would not give her those words of love encouraged the growing disenchantment and distrust on her part that in the aftermath of tragedy had ultimately led to their estrangement? She had held his initial unwillingness to embrace fatherhood against him to the bitter end, hadn't she? He had not loved her and therefore she had found it easier to believe the worst of him, a.s.suming that he could not possibly be grieving for the child they had lost in the same way that she was. Grief had torn them apart because they had not shared it.

All of a sudden she was painfully conscious that Lili's advent could affect them in a similar manner. If they did not share the consequences of her arrival in their lives how could their relationship hope to survive? There could be few more divisive factors than the need for a wife to accept another woman's child. Yet, all over the world thousands of women did exactly that, Tally conceded in exasperation. Step-families, cobbled together from broken and new relationships, were common and many people found themselves raising children to whom they were not related. Such relationships could be particularly challenging and more p.r.o.ne to breakdown and she now fully understood why that was so.

After all, Tally had once expected to be the mother of Sander's first living child! In addition she had been jealous of Oleia and her history of intimacy with Sander. Oleia might be dead but Lili was the ongoing proof of that intimacy. Get over it, a little voice said harshly inside her head. Had not she walked out on their marriage? Leaving the door open for Oleia and Lili's conception? Now she needed to concentrate on the bigger picture and acknowledge that Lili was reliant on the goodwill of the adults surrounding her. How much goodwill was she willing to offer that little baby?

For possibly the first time, Tally recognised that she could not have Sander without his daughter. After all, she did not expect him to neglect his child or to give her up, did she? This wasn't a compet.i.tion, was it? She also knew that she would never ask him to keep his distance from Lili in the same way that her father's wife had zealously sought to exclude her from Anatole's life. Her father had married a possessive woman who felt threatened by Tally's very existence. There and then, Tally resolved to be more mature and just in her dealings with Sander's daughter.

'You're very quiet,' Robert remarked on the drive back to the manor.

'I have a lot on my mind,' Tally confessed.

'You shouldn't be beating yourself up about something that has nothing to do with you,' Robert p.r.o.nounced decisively. 'You need a fresh start.'

Tally raised a wry brow. 'Another one?'

'Walk away from him,' Robert advised as he switched off the car engine outside the house. 'Right now, your marriage is in a disaster zone and n.o.body could expect you to make a go of it.'

Uncomfortable with the conversation, Tally climbed out. Robert followed suit and strode round the front of his car to reach out and grip her hands in his.

'I can't discuss this kind of stuff with you,' Tally protested.

'You deserve better. You were only weeks away from getting a divorce when you went back to him,' Robert reminded her urgently.

The sound of the front door opening made Tally's head swivel, green eyes widening in dismay when she saw Sander striding towards them. She tried to tug her fingers free of the other man's hold but he had too tight a hold on her hands.

'You've got nothing to apologise for and no reason to hide our relationship,' Robert told her insistently.

'Get your hands off my wife!' Sander growled from several feet away.

Tally clashed with scorchingly angry golden eyes and her heartbeat accelerated.

'You're in the middle of a divorce!' Robert p.r.o.nounced witheringly. 'You don't own her any more.'

'n.o.body owns me,' Tally pointed out drily, hoping to lend a note of common sense to the scene developing as she finally managed to pull her hands free and gave her business partner a look of reproach. 'I belong to me.'

'Walk away, Tally,' Sander instructed between clenched teeth, inflamed by the reality that Tally had not disagreed with Miller when he stated that they were still in the middle of a divorce.

'I'm not going anywhere if there's going to be some stupid male confrontation,' Tally announced, her chin tilting in warning. 'I'll see you next week, Robert-'

'Come back to London with me now,' Robert suggested. 'You can't want to stay here ...'

Sander closed a lean brown hand like a manacle over Tally's wrist. 'She's not leaving. She stays with me.'

Watching the two men square up to each other, Tally just wanted to scream in exasperation. She could feel the pent-up aggression in Sander in the taut clench of his long fingers and the poised readiness of his stance. He was a very physical man and in his current angry mood as unstable as gelignite. 'It would be better if you just went home, Robert.' She sighed.

'Why? Are you not allowed visitors now either?' Robert demanded, evidently happy to fan the flames.

In an abrupt movement, Tally tore her hand free of Sander's and spun to stalk into the house, her rigid back expressing her frustration with all things male. If she was the source of the bad feeling, her removal from the scenario ought to calm matters down, she reasoned, turning in the hall to gaze out through a side window. She was just in time to see Robert punch Sander and shock froze her to the spot because she had a.s.sumed Sander was the more likely of the two to lose his temper. Sander, however, wasted no time in striking back and as Robert went down on one knee on the gravel Tally raced back outside again to intervene.

'Stop it!' she screamed furiously. 'There's nothing worth fighting over-'

Frowning, Sander rested stunning dark golden eyes on her. 'You're worth fighting for,' he contradicted almost conversationally.

'If you hit him again, I'm leaving you!' Tally threatened him in desperation.

In the interim, Robert had lunged at Sander again and, taken by surprise, Sander went down heavily. That was when Tally recognised just how much she was still in love with her husband because she almost waded into the midst of the fight and was on the very brink of thumping Robert for taking unfair advantage.

'Just go, Robert!' Tally yelled shakily.

Wiping blood off his lip, her business partner shot her a rueful appraisal, her protective stance not having escaped his attention. 'I'm wasting my time here.'

'Yes, leave before I kill you,' Sander advised rawly as he sprang upright again.

Breathing in shallow spurts, Tally watched while Robert drove off and then she turned to frown at Sander. 'He did hit you first, didn't he?' she checked.

Sander gave her a considering look and then grimaced slowly as if he was picking his words with extreme care. 'Not exactly-'

'You mean, you started the fight?' Tally flared, furious that she had not grasped this salient fact sooner.

'You're my wife and he had stepped over the line,' Sander reasoned without remorse.

'If you'd stayed out of things, nothing would have happened!' Tally launched back at him. 'He was just trying to talk to me.'

Sander's dark golden eyes hardened. 'He was making a move on you.'

Stepping back indoors at a smart pace powered by annoyance, Tally slung him a look of condemnation. 'Whether he was or not is none of your business!'

'Tally ...'

She spun back to him in the airy entrance hall.