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But as his wife clutched his arm, smiling up at him, her eyes shining in the fiery torches lighting up the Santorini hillside, his heart loped in his chest. And he felt the first stirrings of fear. What would happen if Emmie ever really knew?
CHAPTER NINE
EMMIECLUNGTOher husband’s arm as they walked past the torches that led along the path from the dock to the sprawling Baroque mansion, a wedding-cake confection of pink and white, clinging to the hillside above the shore. She felt cold in the warm summer night.
A soft sea breeze blew against her overheated skin, brushing over the red sequins of her sleeveless cocktail dress. The rectangular paillettes shimmered beneath the mansion’s lights flooding from the windows, the sequins similar in size and sparkle to the ten-karat emerald-cut diamond on her left hand.
She glanced nervously to the right and left. She saw others arriving who looked elegant and yet casual, in body-conscious beige or black, as if a soiree in a twenty-million-euro mansion in Santorini was just another Thursday night. All Emmie wanted was to fit in. To not embarrass her husband.
To not make him wonder why he’d married her and wish he hadn’t.
But it was hard for Emmie, as they walked through grand double doors, and uniformed servers offered champagne from silver trays, not to feel like she was out of step and out of her league.
The other guests had been born into fortune or earned it themselves. Some were special for their athletic prowess, others for their cleverness, others for their beauty.
But Emmie? All she’d done was get herself knocked up.
As they entered the ballroom—aballroom, in someone’s private house!—she glanced nervously at Theo. Nowhefit in all right. He looked gorgeous, his powerfully muscled body civilized by his well-tailored tuxedo. He looked handsome and cold.
Only she knew the depths of emotion and darkness in his soul.
But you don’t know, a voice whispered inside her.You’re afraid to know.
“It’s something, isn’t it?” Theo flashed her a crooked smile as he looked up at the frescoes on the ceilings above.
“Something,” she echoed. Sipping a glass of juice, she glanced around uncertainly. She felt people looking at them, whispering.
“Celine’s great-grandfather built this place before the First World War.” He added wryly, “Sometimes I feel like that’s how long I’ve been pitching her father about his Paris property.”
“How many times have you tried?”
“At least five times. The first was years ago, before I met you. Before I knew Nico, even.” His eyes sharpened. “Ah. There she is.”
He pulled her forward to a petite, very slender blonde, wearing a simple beige dress with straps and no embellishment.
“Theo.” Coming forward, the Frenchwoman lifted on the toes of her stilettos to kiss one of his cheeks, then the other.
“Thank you for throwing us a party,” he said, smiling as he looked around the crowded ballroom.
Celine dropped back with a pout, teasingly hitting the lapel of his tuxedo jacket with her hand. “Though, why I should be so good to you, when you never even bothered to invite me to your wedding, I cannot imagine. Hello.” She turned the force of her attention to Emmie. “So you are the lucky Mrs. Katrakis.”
A moment before, thanks to Theo’s compliments, Emmie had been feeling almost pretty. But now, compared to the small, slender French heiress, Emmie suddenly felt as grotesque as a red disco ball—shiny, round and vulgar.
“I am happy to make your acquaintance,” she stammered in schoolgirl French. Sadly, it sounded nothing like when she’d practiced in the yacht earlier that afternoon. Her words sounded garbled, like she had marbles in her mouth.
Celine looked startled, then her smile sharpened. She gave Emmie two cheek kisses in response, then said airily, “Enjoy your party.”
Cheeks hot, Emmie glanced quickly at Theo, feeling like she’d made a fool of herself. He was watching Celine go.
“Theo.”
He turned to her. “Shall I introduce you to everyone?”
But she’d seen the way his eyes had lingered on his ex-girlfriend. She wondered what he was thinking, but then thought that maybe this, too, was something she was afraid to know.
For the next hour Theo introduced her to the wealthy, famous, fabulous people who were his peers and Celine’s. Emmie duly shook hands with or was air-kissed by tycoons, government leaders, movie stars and nepo babies.
“Congratulations,” they all said to her, as they looked from gorgeous Theo in his well-cut tuxedo to Emmie’s flushed face and pregnant belly. And as their lips curved, she knew what they were thinking because she was thinking the same: she didn’t deserve to be here.
