Modern Romance November 2019 Books 5-8. Dani Collins

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       CHAPTER ONE

      ‘SMILE, CALYPSO. IT’S the happiest day of your life!’

       ‘Here, let me put some more blusher on your cheeks…you’re so pale. Perhaps a bit more shadow for your beautiful eyes…’

      Beneath the endless layers of white tulle that some faceless stranger had deemed the perfect wedding gown material and gone to town with my fingers bunched into fists. When the tight clenches didn’t help, I bit the tip of my tongue and fought the urge to scream.

      But I was past hysteria. That unfortunate state had occurred two weeks prior, when my father had informed me just how he’d mapped out the rest of my life. How it was my turn to help restore our family’s honour.

      Or else.

      The cold shivers racing up and down my spine had become familiar in the last month, after a few days spent in denial that my father would truly carry out his intentions.

      I’d quickly accepted that he would.

      Years of bitterness and humiliation and failure to emulate his ruthless father’s dubious acclaim had pushed him over the edge once and for all.

      The soft bristles of the blusher brush passed feverishly over my cheeks. The make-up artist determined to transform me into an eager, blushing, starry-eyed bride.

      But I was far from eager and a million miles away from starry-eyed.

      The only thing they’d got right in this miserable spectacle was the virginal white.

      If I’d had a choice that too would have been a lie. At twenty-four I knew, even in my sheltered existence, that being a virgin was a rare phenomenon. At least now I realised why my father had been hell-bent on thwarting my every encounter with the opposite sex. Why he’d ruthlessly vetted my friendships, curtailed my freedom.

      I’d believed my choices had been so abruptly limited since the moment my mother fell from grace. Since she returned home the broken prodigal wife and handed my father all the weapons he needed to transform himself from moderately intolerable to fearsome tyrant. I thought I’d been swept along by the merciless broom of wronged party justice, but he’d had a completely different purpose for me.

      A purpose which had brought me to this moment.

       My wedding day.

      The next shudder coagulated in my chin, making it wobble like jelly before I could wrestle my composure back under control.

      Luckily the trio of women who’d descended on our house twenty-four hours ago were clucking about pre-wedding nerves, then clucking some more about how understandable my fraught emotions were, considering who my prospective husband was.

      Axios Xenakis.

      A man I’d never met.

      Sure, like everyone in Greece I knew who he was. A wildly successful airline magnate worth billions and head of the influential Xenakis family. A family whose ill fortune, unlike mine, had been reversed due the daring innovation of its young CEO.

      It was rumoured that Axios Xenakis was the kind of individual whose projections could cause stock markets to rise or fall. The various articles I’d read about him had boggled my mind—the idea that any one person could wield such power and authority was bewildering. To top it off, Axios Xenakis was drop-dead gorgeous, if a little fierce-looking.

      Everything about the man was way too visceral and invasive. Just a simple glance at his image online had evoked the notion that he could see into my soul, glean my deepest desires and use them against me. It was probably why he was often seen in the company of sophisticated heiresses and equally influential A-listers.

      Which begged the question—why the Petras family? More specifically, why me?

      What did a man who dated socialites and heiresses on a regular basis, as was thoroughly documented in the media, have to gain by shackling himself to me?

      I knew it had something to do with the supreme smugness my father had been exhibiting in the last several weeks but he had refused to disclose. Somehow, behind the sneers and bitterness whenever the Xenakis name came up over the years, my father had been scheming. And that scheming had included me.

      In all my daydreams about attaining my freedom, marriage hadn’t featured anywhere. I wanted the freedom to dictate who I socialised with, what I ate, the pleasure to paint my watercolours without fear of recrimination, without judgement… The freedom to live life on my terms.

      The hope of one day achieving those things had stopped me from succumbing to abject misery.

      But not like this!

      I forced my gaze to the mirror and promptly looked away again. My eyes were desolate pools, my cheeks artificially pink with excess rouge. My lips were turned down, reflecting my despair since learning that I was promised to a stranger. One who’d demanded a wedding within twenty-eight days.

      My flat refusal had merely garnered a cold shrug from my father, before he had gone for the jugular—my one weakness.

      My mother.

      As if summoned by my inner turmoil, the electric whine of a wheelchair disturbed the excited chatter of the stylists. The moment they realised the mother of the bride had entered the bedroom, their attention shifted to her.

      Taking advantage of the reprieve, I surreptitiously rubbed at my cheeks with a tissue, removing a layer of blusher. The icy peach lipstick disappeared with the second swipe across my lips, leaving me even paler than before but thankfully looking less of a lost, wide-eyed freak. Quickly hanging the thick lace veil over my face to hide the alteration, I stood and turned, watching as the women fawned over my mother.

      Iona Petras had been stunningly beautiful once upon a time. Growing up, I was in awe of her statuesque beauty, her vivacity and sheer joy for life. Her laughter had lit up my day, her intelligence and love of the arts fuelling my own appreciation for music and painting.

      Now, greying and confined, she was still a beautiful woman. But along with her broken body had come a broken spirit no amount of pretending or smiling, or even gaining the elevated position as mother of the bride, soon to marry a man most deemed a demigod, could disguise.