The Santorini Bride. Anne McAllister

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      It was dusk when he got back. The tavernas were all lit up and music throbbed from half a dozen small nightclubs and cafés. The quay was crowded with holidaymakers, laughing and jostling and some even dancing. Two or three even wanted to dance with him.

      Theo smiled and shook his head. Equanimity restored, he could look at them dispassionately now. Sometime in the near future he might even take some lovely lady up on it.

      But chatting up some woman seemed more effort than it was worth tonight. He was tired and so he kept going, climbing the steps that led up the hillside, looking forward to a cold beer and a shower and a soft bed.

      He climbed the winding stairs to the front door—and stopped dead at the sight of Martha in the window, crossing from the living room toward the kitchen.

      Equanimity evaporating, Theo thundered up the last dozen steps, pushed open the front door and headed straight for the kitchen after her.

      “Listen, I thought I told you—”

      “Theo!” A sultry Scandinavian-accented voice came after him from the living room.

      Theo jerked around. A tall slender blonde woman—every man’s dream, he’d thought when he’d first met her—opened her arms wide as she glided toward him.

      “Agnetta?” It wasn’t really a question. And Agnetta was no longer a dream—she was a nightmare. If there was any woman he wanted to see in his living room less than he’d wanted to see Martha Antonides, it was Agnetta Carlsson.

      But before she could reply, another younger woman appeared as well. “Theo!” She ran across the room to throw her arms around him.

      Theo caught her before she could smother him with kisses and stared down at her, horrified. Whoever she was, she looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t put a name to her. In fact, he didn’t have to.

      “Remember me? Cassandra,” she told him cheerfully. “You know, Cassie! Cassie Thelonikis. Your mother’s goddaughter!”

      Ye gods. Deliberately Theo held her at arm’s length, recognizing her now, and not at all happy with the recognition.

      “Your mother sent us over,” Cassie said happily, confirming his worst fear. “Isn’t that cool?”

      Cool was not the word Theo would have used to describe it. “Sent you here? Why?” He knew he sounded harsh. He couldn’t help it.

      But Cassie was immune. “She says you need some distraction. And protection,” she added. “She says you’re too focused on sailing and since you’re the world’s sexiest sailor you have too many women bothering you.”

      Which gave his mother full marks for perception. But why the hell had she thought sending more women would improve matters?

      And Agnetta Carlsson of all people! Theo grimaced inwardly. She didn’t even know Agnetta! Did she?

      Cassandra, who obviously could read minds, explained. “I’ve been modeling this past year, and I worked with Agnetta lots this spring. They seem to think it’s cool, her being so fair and me so dark.” She shrugged. “We got to be friends. And when I had lunch with your mother last week in the city, Agnetta came along. She wanted to meet your mom because you two were friends.”

      Was that what they had been? Theo wouldn’t have called it that. He had met Swedish model Agnetta Carlsson last summer at a sailboat race off Marseilles. She had been there on a fashion photo shoot. And after the race and the shoot, there had been a party and Agnetta had come with one of the Australians, who got drunk and promptly forgot her.

      Agnetta hadn’t minded. She had found someone far more interesting—Theo.

      And at the time Theo had been equally, though casually, interested in her.

      His brother George had once called him “an equal opportunity womanizer.” And while Theo wouldn’t have put it that crudely, he had never claimed not to like women. He did. And gorgeous curvy blondes like Agnetta definitely topped the list. He’d charmed Agnetta that night. And she’d charmed him. Still, he’d been clear about what interested him—and what didn’t.

      “No strings,” he’d said right up front.

      “Strings?” She’d batted her gorgeous long lashes at him. “But no.” She’d cuddled up to him and kissed him soundly. “Of course not!”

      Agnetta was beautiful. She was eager. She had been good fun and, not surprisingly, she had been good in bed.

      For a month they had been an item. The society editors and gossip columnists loved them. Agnetta’s blond beauty and Theo’s dark features were a photographer’s dream. But soon the columnists—and Agnetta—began talking about marriage.

      Is Aggie “the one”? One of the tabloids shrieked.

      Will Aggie catch her man? Asked another.

      Aggie’s rock? Big as Gibraltar? Demanded a third.

      Does Aggie have a secret? Screamed a fourth.

      “Where the hell are they getting this stuff?” Theo had done his own demanding. “We aren’t getting married!”

      “Of course not, darling.” Agnetta had batted her lashes and shaken her head. “Unless,” she had given him a dimpled coy smile, “they know something we don’t know!”

      “Not bloody likely,” Theo had said gruffly.

      But it soon became apparent that they had heard rumors Theo hadn’t. At least not until Agnetta had come to him a week later and said, “I’m pregnant, Theo.”

      “Pregnant?”

      Theo found that hard to believe. He was a careful, responsible man. And he’d never been less than careful with Agnetta. He’d asked to see the pregnancy test, asked to talk to her doctor.

      Agnetta’s face had flushed. “You don’t believe me?”

      He СКАЧАТЬ