The Giannakis Bride (3 page)

“Very hard work, very long hours and not nearly as glamorous as most people think.”

“Sounds a bit like my life.”

“Hardly,” Brianna said, with exactly the right degree of charming modesty. “I wouldn’t presume to compare the two. Unlike you, I don’t have any special skill or expertise. I’ve certainly never saved a life.”

“You might. And that you’re willing to try puts you on a pedestal in my eyes. As for your not having any special skills, I rather doubt that’s true. It must take enormous patience and stamina to meet the artistic and, I imagine, often conflicting demands of photographers and couturiers.”

Brianna gave an elegant little shrug, a studied response designed to draw attention to her upper body, he was sure. Why else would she have chosen to wear a dress that left one shoulder bare? “On occasion, yes.”

Clearly fascinated by a way of life so far removed from her own, Noelle tucked her legs under her and settled more snugly into the couch. “What drew you to modeling in the first place?”

“My mother got us started when my sister and I were still in diapers, and it more or less took on a life of its own from there. While other children our age played in the sandbox or learned to ride a bike, we traveled from one junior beauty pageant to another.”

“She must have been very proud of you.”

“She marketed us ruthlessly,” Brianna said flatly.

For a second
Dimitrios
thought he heard an edge of bitter resentment in her reply, then decided he must have been mistaken. She might not have had any choice when she was still a minor, but as an adult, if she didn’t like what she did for a living, she could have chosen something else. She wasn’t completely without brains, was she?

“And did it very successfully,” he remarked, trying to keep his scorn under control. “Admit it, Brianna. You and Cecily became international celebrities before you were in kindergarten.”

“Because, as you very well know,
Dimitrios
, there were two of us and we looked identical. That’s what made us special.”

“Now there’s only you, but you seem to be doing just fine on your own.”

“Losing a sister is never easy,” Noelle said, flicking him a cautionary glance, “but it must have been particularly difficult to lose a twin. You were very close, I’m sure.”

“When we were children, yes.”

That was just one lie too many for him to stomach. “Oh, come on, Brianna! You were thick as thieves when I met you.”

She turned a slow stare his way. “If you believe that, it just goes to show how little you knew either one of us.”

“I was married to Cecily, remember?”

“I’m hardly likely to forget.”

“Of course you aren’t,” he jeered, knowing that by continuing to goad her, he was pushing his luck, but unable to stop. “After all, look how you aided and abetted her in getting me to the altar.”

Her mouth dropped open in shock, the delectable curve of her lower lip stirring memories of a time when he’d explored it at erotic leisure. But he wasn’t fooled. He knew better than most how she and her twin had impersonated one another when it suited their purpose.

Recovering, she said, “I dropped everything to come here at a moment’s notice because you asked me to,
Dimitrios
. I can leave just as quickly.”

“This isn’t about you,
Dimitrios
, it’s about Poppy,” Noelle reminded him, electing herself mediator of a situation fast deteriorating past a point of no return. “Let’s not forget that.”

“Of course not.” He ventured to meet his sister-in-law’s icy-blue stare. “Forgive me, Brianna. I’m worried sick about Poppy, but that hardly justifies my belaboring you with it.”

“I understand.” Again, she tilted one shoulder in that tempting little shrug. “I’d have come sooner, if I’d known.”

“You’re here now, and that’s what matters.” Noelle set her cup and saucer on the coffee table and unfolded her legs from beneath her. “And, pleasant though it is sitting here and being spoiled, I’d better be off and catch up on my sleep. I enjoyed meeting you, Brianna.”

Smiling, Brianna rose in one fluid movement. “I enjoyed it, too.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, at noon?”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Excellent! Walk me out,
Dimitrios
?”

“Sure.”

Noelle waited until they reached her car and were well out of earshot of anyone in the house, before rounding on him. “Tell me,
Dimitrios
Giannakis
, just how badly do you want your daughter to get well again?”

“More than anything in the world, as you very well know.”

“Then I suggest you keep your tongue and your temper on a very short leash. Your behavior tonight was inexcusable.”

“You might not think so, if you knew the history between Brianna and me.”

“I don’t give a rat’s behind about your history! The only person I care about is Poppy, and I will not sit idly by and watch you systematically sabotage what might turn out to be her best chance of recovery.”

“Brianna isn’t all she seems.”

“Really? I consider myself a pretty good judge of character and she struck me as a very nice, sincere woman.”

“You didn’t see past the beautiful face.”

“I’m not the one hung up on her looks,
Dimitrios
. You are. And I strongly recommend you get over it.”

“Easier said than done,” he grumbled, helping her into her car. “She’s a carbon copy of her sister.”

Noelle laughed. “Identical twins usually are, dear!” she said and, engaging the gears, roared off into the night.

No sooner had they disappeared outside than Brianna escaped upstairs to her room. She and
Dimitrios
were like oil and water, never meant to mix. If Noelle Manning hadn’t been there to referee, they’d have been at each other’s throats by now. But they had to find a way to get along, and she could only hope a good night’s rest would leave them both more kindly disposed toward each other by morning.

Erika or one of her minions had turned down the bed, switched on a reading lamp and left two English-language magazines on the nightstand. The French windows in the sitting area stood open, their filmy white drapes pulled back and hanging still as mist at each side. Over the arm of the love seat lay a shawl of softest mohair. A sterling silver tray holding an exquisite bone china hot chocolate pot and mug waited on the coffee table. Regardless of whether or not she approved, Erika was obeying to the letter her instructions to treat the guest like royalty.

But then, from what Brianna had seen, palatial was the key word at the villa
Giannakis
. She’d barely been able to concentrate on the evening meal, she’d been so bowled over by the magnificence of the setting. His dining room must have been fifteen by thirty feet, with a marble-tiled floor and priceless
Savonnerie
rug. Original artwork worth a king’s ransom hung on the walls.

The table, large enough to seat twenty with ease, consisted of a square slab of beveled glass supported by pillars fashioned after Doric columns. Five chairs upholstered in rich cranberry fabric lined each side. A fabulous old carved sideboard and sleek sterling candelabra completed the decor, resulting in a marriage of antique and modern; of classic elegance and good taste.

A sharp departure from her penthouse which, although overlooking the strait separating the mainland from Vancouver Island, and furnished with its own kind of elegance, didn’t compare to this place, which oozed comfort and opulence at every turn. And yet she’d have given anything to be back there now, mistress of her own fate.

But that wasn’t an option. She was here in
Dimitrios’s
home, if not exactly a prisoner, then certainly not a cherished guest, either.

Too keyed up to sleep, Brianna kicked off her shoes, tucked the shawl around her shoulders and stepped out on her deck. Moonlight spilled over the sea and dappled the garden with shadows. Apart from the soft sigh of waves on the beach below, the night was utterly quiet, utterly peaceful—until a rap at the door shattered it, that was.

“Brianna,”
Dimitrios
announced, too loudly for her to pretend she hadn’t heard him, “it is I.”

How painfully formal and grammatically correct, she thought wryly, refusing to acknowledge the frisson of apprehension his voice inspired. “If you’ve come to continue needling me,” she began, opening the door, “you can take yourself and your—”

“I have come to apologize. Again. And to ask if we can forget the past, not just for Poppy’s sake, but for yours and mine. This business of donating bone marrow amounts to more than a few minutes in a doctor’s office. The tests are exhaustive, and I have no wish to make your time here any more unpleasant than it has to be.”

“Well, if tonight’s any example…”

“It’s not. I’m afraid I’m never at my best after I come back from the hospital, but that scarcely excuses my taking out my anxiety on others, especially not you.” He offered his hand. “May we please start over?”

She could cope with his hostility, his bad behavior. Let him snipe and rant until the earth stopped turning, if he chose. He couldn’t hurt her that way, not anymore. But in his present conciliatory mode, he was downright dangerous. Enough that the resentment she’d harbored all these years suddenly seemed not so well-founded, after all, and how stupid a conclusion was that when all the evidence pointed to the contrary? “I’m not sure it’s possible,” she said, struggling to shore up her sagging defenses.

Taking her by surprise, he slid his fingers around her wrist in a warm, close grip. “Can we at least talk about it, and try to find a way?”

She wrenched her arm free and stepped back, horrified by the way her pulse leaped at his touch.

She’d have done better to stand her ground because he took her retreat as an invitation to march right into the room and close the door. It was all she could do not to run for cover behind the love seat. Trying not to hyperventilate, she clutched the cashmere shawl tightly at her throat.

The suite was generously proportioned. Even allowing for what the furniture occupied, there was still almost enough floor area left for a Las Vegas chorus girl to put on a show. Yet he seemed to swallow up the space until it shrank to the size of a shoe box. “What’s the matter, Brianna?” he inquired silkily, closing in on her. “Are you afraid I might kiss you—or just afraid you might like it too much to try to stop me?”

“Neither,” she replied, and suppressing a tug of something suspiciously like desire, she drew herself up to her full five foot nine in an attempt to stare him down.

She might as well have spared herself the effort. “Really?” he purred. “Why don’t we find out?”

His arm snaked around her waist and pulled her close. The feel of his body against hers sent the blood thrumming through her veins. The lightning rod that was his mouth brought back in vivid recall the memory of the first time he’d kissed her, and where it had led: to a rendezvous in his stateroom, and an introduction to the pleasures of lovemaking, of sex, that had spoiled her for any other man.

But she remembered, too, what came afterward. The betrayal, the abandonment, had almost killed her. Although she’d honored her modeling assignments, smiling through her pain, covering up the dark circles under her eyes, everyone had noticed something was wrong. Rumors that she was ill—anorexic, bulimic, on the verge of a break-down—had circulated like wildfire and almost destroyed her career.

You’ve got to show them you’re still on top, Carter had urged. And she had. Because her career was all she had left.
Dimitrios
had robbed her of everything else.

She couldn’t let him do it again.

Lifting her hands, she pushed against the solid wall of his chest with all her might. “That might be your idea of starting over, but it’s certainly not mine.”

He released her willingly enough. “Forgive me for allowing my baser instincts to get the better of me,” he said, aloof disdain written all over his cold, beautiful face. “Believe me, I know better than anybody that what happened between us in the past is long ago over and done with, and nothing either of us can say or do will ever change that.”

“At least we’re agreed on one thing.”

“More than one, I hope. I’m calling for a truce, Brianna, because the future—Poppy’s future—is all that matters now.” He wiped a hand down his face, and all at once weariness softened the severe cast of his mouth and left him looking achingly vulnerable. “They tell me what’s happened to her isn’t my fault, but I blame myself anyway. If I’d been a better father, paid closer attention to her, she might not be in such bad shape now.”

Touched despite herself, Brianna said, “I’m sure you were, and are, an exemplary father,
Dimitrios
.”

“No.” Restlessly, he paced to the French doors and stared out. “I ignored her symptoms. She had what appeared to be a cough and a cold, and I did nothing about it for the better part of two months. It wasn’t until I noticed she had bruises that couldn’t be accounted for that I insisted on a more thorough investigation into the possible causes.”

“Surely you’d consulted a doctor before that?”

The question was out before she could contain it, and he swung around, his face a mask of hurt and anger. “Of course I did! Within a week of her cold first appearing. I’m not a complete imbecile.”