The Marriage Betrayal

Chapter EIGHT


BEING no fan of those who wallowed in misery to drama-queen depths, Tally gave herself only twenty-four hours to come to terms with the worst of Sander’s absolute rejection.

He had told her no lies, Tally conceded then, struggling to be fair, even though his reaction to her news had torn her to shreds. Right from the start Sander had spelt out his position on commitment and his loathing for unplanned conceptions. But the sheer level of his angry bitterness and distrust had still come as a nasty surprise. His determination to have nothing more to do with her on a personal basis only reminded her that their child would be an ongoing financial responsibility that he would be less able to avoid. Was he planning to behave as her reluctant father had behaved? Would their child in turn become Sander’s youthful mistake and dirty little secret? Did he truly believe that Tally could be eagerly anticipating a future to be lived at his expense?

Yet, wasn’t that in many ways what her own mother had done? a little voice asked Tally, and she almost cringed at that deeply embarrassing but unavoidable comparison. It was a fact that Crystal had stopped any pretence of working for a living after finally being awarded child maintenance in court. Nor could Tally deny the existence of women willing to conceive a child either in an attempt to hold onto a man or as a means of gaining an income. The most obvious difference between mother and daughter was that Crystal had planned her pregnancy while assuming that the father of her child would marry her. Sadly, her mother’s pungent disappointment at the way in which her hopes and dreams had come to nothing had not abated with the passage of time and Tally wanted no part of such bitterness. By the time she reached her forties she didn’t want to still be agonising over a rejection that had occurred in her youth.

That fact acknowledged, however, Tally had cried until her eyes were raw. She had lost the man she loved at the same time as she was forced to accept that thanks to her condition he could hardly wait to banish her from his life. His lack of care and concern, not to mention his suspicions about her character, had hurt her a great deal.

‘Realistically,’ Crystal said drily the following week when Tally was calm enough to discuss things without breaking down, ‘what more did you expect from Sander Volakis when you went to see him?’

Tally looked across the breakfast bar at her mother and compressed her soft mouth. ‘I really did think that he cared about me … not true love but, you know, cared,’ she stressed with genuine pain in her unhappy eyes. ‘But when I told him about the baby I might as well have been some girl he slept with one night and forgot about afterwards.’

Crystal frowned. ‘You can be so naïve, Tally. If you think about it, Sander was only with you because he was having fun … and very few men, if any, see a baby as a fun extra. It’s not what he signed up for.’

‘I suppose not,’ Tally conceded gruffly, resisting a dangerous urge to admit that it wasn’t what she had signed up for either. But if she took that stance, Crystal would again start discussing adoption or termination as possible options to her dilemma. Her mother had said she would back her daughter regardless of what she chose to do. While Tally appreciated that support, she was already sufficiently scared of the future without listening to Crystal tell her yet again how much having a child had impacted on her life and spoilt it by stealing her freedom and scaring off eligible men. It astonished Tally that she and her mother could have such different memories of her childhood.

‘But at least Sander didn’t try to deny responsibility and he’s already promised that he’ll cover the bills—he’s streets ahead of your father in that line,’ Crystal pronounced with a level of contempt for Anatole that could only make her daughter wince.

With her final exams coming up, Tally did not have the luxury of sitting about talking or of staring into space and feeling wretched. She retired to her room to study, aware that with a child on the way it was even more important that she gain the qualifications she needed to find work. It was towards the end of that week that her phone rang and she was startled when she realised that it was actually Sander calling her again.

‘We need to talk some more,’ Sander breathed the instant she answered, his dark accented drawl level and expressionless. ‘I’ll pick you up at eight—’

‘No,’ Tally broke in hastily, keen to ensure that he did not run into her mother but not even hesitating over whether or not to agree to see him again. ‘There’s no need. I’ll meet you—where?’

He suggested his apartment and although she would have preferred surroundings that would not awaken memories of happier times she knew they could only discuss her pregnancy in privacy. But what could he possibly want to talk about? The stance he had taken at his office had been so unqualified, so final, that it had left no room for compromise. Her curiosity was intense but he gave no hints as to why he wanted to see her again during that brief, almost businesslike call.

The front door was open for her arrival and she breathed in deep, smoothing damp palms down over the filmy top she wore teamed with a short skirt. The only special effort she had made with her appearance had gone into eradicating the evidence of tears and a sleepless night from her face but even so, with all her defensive antenna in place and her head held high, her heart was beating so fast she wanted to press a hand against her breastbone to slow it down.

Sander had only one agenda in mind: to do what had to be done and move on. He had dealt with setbacks before and, at ease with taking charge of difficult situations, he always forged boldly ahead. But when Tally walked in, other responses took over. He noticed the new wariness in her lack of facial expression and cautious entrance. The happy glow and smiles he was accustomed to receiving were gone. Nor, now that he knew the facts that she should never have kept from him, could he rise above the need to see if he could trace her parentage in her looks. Hostility licked through him when he found himself instinctively linking her lack of height and slightly prominent nose to Anatole Karydas’ paternity.

Tally focused on Sander’s lean powerful figure and tried and failed to swallow. She was horribly short of breath. His superb cheekbones were taut below his bronzed skin. He was a devastatingly handsome guy and he still made her tummy flip and her mouth run dry in knee-jerk reactions she could not suppress, but the fierce tension in the air could only increase her discomfiture.

‘Would you like a drink?’ he asked politely.

‘No, thanks.’ In an effort to seem in control, Tally parked herself on the edge of a leather sofa, knees pinned together, handbag at her feet. In the pool of lamplight her tumbling mane of corkscrew curls acquired a glowing amber vibrancy while the see-through quality of her top was accentuated. Momentarily, his cold dark gaze rested on the voluptuous curves spilling over beneath the fine fabric of her bra and a hunger he despised assailed him. Swiftly he redirected his attention to the anxious green eyes locked to his lean strong face.

Anger flared in Sander at that look, although he was not at all surprised that she was worried. She had told him outright lies and kept secrets from him and he was now fully convinced that she must’ve set him up as a fall guy for her pregnancy. He was not slow on the uptake and since Anatole’s visit he had made enquiries, learning enough about Tally’s background in the process to marvel at the parallels between the circumstances of her birth and her current condition. And Sander had never believed in innocent coincidences.

‘You said we needed to talk some more,’ Tally prompted tightly, her nerves jumping, diving and weaving like acrobats in the strained silence.

‘Last week, you took me by surprise and I’m afraid I didn’t react very well to your announcement,’ Sander drawled in a smooth-as-silk opener.

Wondering where the dialogue was going, Tally closed her trembling fingers together to steady them. ‘No, you didn’t,’ she agreed. ‘But I know that what I had to tell you must’ve come as a shock.’

‘But, as you said, it doesn’t follow that the advent of a child has to be seen as a disaster,’ Sander delivered, tipping his drink to his mouth and using alcohol to force sentiments that tasted false from his mouth. He was twenty-five years old and he wasn’t ready for a baby in his life. He had nothing against babies, he just didn’t want one of his own, not for years and years and years, if at all. Furthermore lying wasn’t his way. Telling the truth and shaming the devil came much more naturally to him but he did not want to risk confronting Tally with his suspicions before they were safely married. He could not afford to jeopardise the future of Volakis Shipping. He gritted his even white teeth on the crushing conviction that he did not have a choice as to what he did next. Anatole Karydas had taken free choice out of the equation and put family loyalty squarely in its place.

‘It would be much better if we could be civilised about this situation,’ Tally remarked, thinking unhappily of the bitter animosity that still flourished between her parents even after the passage of so many years.

‘I have every intention of doing the best I can for you and the baby,’ Sander asserted. ‘That may surprise you after the way I behaved.’

‘No, it doesn’t surprise me,’ Tally interrupted with a shadow of her once sunny smile that sought to dispel the fierce tension in the room. ‘You’re not an irresponsible person, you’re just volatile and you were angry. I understood that.’

Disconcerted by the manner in which she pronounced judgement on his character with a familiarity that no other woman had ever dared to employ, Sander drained his glass and set it down with a decisive snap. ‘I want you to marry me,’ he told her, and because he needed her to marry him to save Volakis Shipping the proposal fell from his lips with all the convincing gravitas of the perfect truth.

Astonishment made Tally’s eyes fly wide. She was deeply shaken, for that proposal was just about the last thing she had expected to hear from him. Paralysed into stillness, she stared, her eyes dark as emeralds and full of confusion and uncertainty. ‘Are you serious?’

‘Wouldn’t it be a very stupid thing to say if I wasn’t?’

Embarrassment washed colour back into Tally’s cheeks and beaded perspiration on her short upper lip. She was wildly flustered and trying to hide it. With an effort she straightened her slight shoulders and looked back at him again. ‘But you know you don’t really want to marry me, Sander, so it would be the wrong thing to do.’

Taken aback by that unexpected response, Sander frowned, his ebony brows drawing together. ‘I do want to marry you,’ he said again.

The tip of Tally’s tongue slipped out to moisten her dry lower lip. A heightened state of excitement was making her heart thump in what felt like the foot of her throat. She wanted to snatch at his proposal with both hands and name the day. After all, she loved him and he was offering her most secret dream, the for ever relationship she had believed until now could only exist in her own imagination. But it still felt more like a dream than reality and the last thing she wanted from Sander was a proposal made only on the basis of her pregnancy because she was convinced that a marriage in which he unwillingly surrendered his freedom could never survive.

‘At the end of the day, the baby won’t care whether we’re married or not,’ she pointed out gently. ‘And we haven’t been together for long enough to be talking about getting married. You’re only suggesting marriage because I’m pregnant.’

Brilliant dark eyes gleaming, Sander said in dry challenge, ‘Is there something wrong with that? In my family, we get married before we have children and any other remedy is unacceptable to me.’

Tally flushed to the roots of her hair at that rejoinder. He knew her parents were unmarried and was making it clear that he was from a rather more conventional family set-up. ‘I just don’t want you asking me to marry you because of the baby. That’s not enough to sustain a relationship and it’s not your style either. You like your freedom.’

Sander wondered if she was deliberately mocking him or if he was supposed to be impressed and touched by her apparent reluctance to become his wife in such circumstances. ‘Of course I like my freedom but I have decided that I would like you in my bed every night even more.’

That unashamedly blunt admission sent a scorching wave of heat travelling through Tally’s taut length. Meeting his smouldering dark golden gaze, Tally felt the pulse beat of desire kick low in her pelvis and create a mortifying tingle of awareness between her legs. ‘But only ten days ago it seemed to be Oleia Telis whom you wanted in your bed,’ she reminded him unhappily.

‘It’s more than five years since I last slept with Oleia and I can assure you that I have no intention of resurrecting that relationship,’ Sander declared without hesitation.

‘But obviously you still find her attractive,’ Tally responded uneasily, dismayed by the evident fact that his ties with the tiny brunette stretched back that far and had, indeed, once been as intimate as she had feared.

‘No, she still finds me attractive,’ Sander corrected with arrogant cool. ‘It’s a rather perverse game that we play. Let me explain. When I was twenty I was very much in love with Oleia, but she shagged another guy and I ditched her. She’s been trying to get me back ever since but I could never forgive what she did.’

Tally felt the emotional punch of what he was telling her, recognising the truth when she heard it in the roughened edge to his dark deep drawl and the grimness briefly etched in his lean dark features. Once upon a time he had loved Oleia and she had betrayed him and her infidelity had hurt him badly. Tally knew his dark temperament well enough to grasp that Oleia’s ongoing eager pursuit would appeal to his desire to settle the score and soothe his male ego.

‘So, it amuses you to let Oleia come on to you and kiss you,’ Tally remarked thinly.

Sander gazed levelly back at her. ‘I never thought about it. It was nothing, it meant nothing, it was going nowhere. I didn’t know you were watching my every move or that you would be so narrow-minded.’

Tally’s fingers closed into defensive fists. She had finally got an explanation about Oleia and she didn’t want to waste time getting into an argument with him on that score. He had told her the unlovely truth about Oleia and she appreciated that, but time had moved on and she had more important things to worry about, not least the baby she carried.

‘If I’m narrow-minded, it’s with good reason,’ Tally countered heavily. ‘I just don’t approve of people being too free and easy when it comes to sex. That’s basically why I grew up without a father.’

Sander’s lean, darkly handsome features were taut. ‘But Anatole still regards you as his daughter …’

It was Tally’s turn to freeze in surprise. ‘You already know that Anatole Karydas is my father? I never really saw the point of mentioning it because he takes so little to do with me. But how did you find out?’

‘He told me,’ Sander fielded flatly, his expressive mouth compressing on the grudging admission. ‘He also admitted that his wife and Cosima didn’t like people knowing you existed.’

Relieved that the secret was out, even though she was surprised that her father should have confided in him, Tally muttered, ‘Cosima didn’t want anyone to know the truth. She insisted on pretending that I worked for her that weekend at Westgrave. How did you meet Anatole?’

‘Your father does business with mine.’ As he was in no position to challenge her story or reveal his true feelings, Sander compressed his handsome mouth and returned to his most pressing objective. ‘I want to marry you as soon as it can be arranged—’

‘But why?’ Tally asked him helplessly. ‘You don’t love me.’

‘I want you more than I’ve wanted any woman in a very long time and that physical connection is very important to me,’ Sander breathed thickly, black lashes low over his molten golden gaze as he studied her with a sexual heat she could literally feel. ‘Right now I just want to cut through all this bull and take you back to bed …’

Her nipples straining into prominence beneath her clothes, Tally experienced a hollow ache at the heart of her and she went pink, acknowledging the power of the fiery sexual hunger that still drew them together even as she was moved to protest, ‘People don’t marry just to share a bed.’

‘Why not? I marry you and I take care of you and the baby. What could be more normal?’

Being taken care of was a seductive proposition for a young woman who had had to fight to get any attention from either of her parents as a child. ‘But would that be enough for you?’

‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ Sander responded. ‘Why are you making this so complicated?’

‘I don’t want either of us to make a mistake,’ Tally confided ruefully, fighting her desire to say yes and let him drag her off to bed then and there. ‘When we met at your office, you didn’t seem to want anything to do with me or the baby.’

‘But now I’ve adjusted to your announcement and I recognise that this is my baby as well,’ Sander countered levelly.

That declaration impressed her. ‘But you were so angry with me.’

‘That was unjust.’ Sander shifted a broad shoulder in a dismissive gesture. ‘As I didn’t use condoms I’m as much to blame for this development as you are.’

‘If you really believe that I could be the wife you want, I’ll marry you,’ Tally framed awkwardly, wishing that she could just throw herself into his arms and wondering why on earth she should still feel so uneasy about his proposal. Was it that it seemed too good to be true that she loved him and had fallen pregnant and he should want to marry her?

‘Okay, so we’ll get the deed done as quickly as possible,’ Sander pronounced impatiently, in no mood to dress up the occasion with fine words or gestures. ‘Next week would suit my schedule—’

‘Next week?’ Tally parroted in pure disbelief. ‘I’m about to start my final exams and it’ll be two weeks before I’ve finished.’

‘I don’t think it will take long to organise a quiet civil ceremony.’

Tally stiffened and sent him a rueful glance. ‘I would rather get married in church, Sander. It could still be small and quiet.’

His beautifully shaped mouth compressed with an impatience he could not hide. ‘If you say so. I don’t really care how we go about it, I just want it staged as soon as possible.’

Tally had read that men were rarely enthusiastic about wedding arrangements. But why was such haste necessary? It would be quite a few weeks before her condition became obvious. Was he embarrassed by the prospect of a visibly pregnant bride? Or a baby who would be born less than the requisite nine months after the wedding? Sander was too much his own man for her to credit either possibility.

‘Look, maybe we should both spend a couple of days thinking this over before we rush into anything,’ Tally suggested, her common sense winning out over her reluctance to allow him another opportunity to consider his position.

Sander frowned, dark as night eyes flashing with angry intolerance. ‘But you said you would marry me.’

‘Yes, and I absolutely meant it!’ Tally broke in with a passionate vehemence she could not restrain. ‘But this is a complete turnaround for you and it worries me that you’re in such a hurry.’

Sander released his breath in a hiss, dangerous golden eyes locked in seething challenge to her troubled face. ‘I don’t know what more you want from me.’

Tally wondered if she was being hugely unfair and foolish. After all, she wanted his heart and it wasn’t on offer. Oleia had evidently planted a dainty but destructive stiletto heel in that organ when he was at an impressionable age and the women who had followed in her footsteps had reaped the distrust, cynicism and emotional detachment that Oleia had sown.

‘I need to know that you truly want a life with me and our child and that this isn’t some crazy impulse which you will regret in a few months’ time.’

His beautiful wilful mouth took on a sardonic slant. ‘Do you think I know myself so little? Or is it simply that you’re offended that I didn’t do the big proposal scene?’

‘It is only a week since you told me to take my cheesy platitudes and pretty much get out of your office!’ Tally slammed back at him as she grabbed up her bag and sprang upright, eager to take her leave before her simmering emotions led her into an argument she did not want to have.

Alive with wrathful impatience and frustration, Sander closed his lean hands over hers and pulled her up against him, hot golden eyes hungrily raking her flushed and unhappy face. He shifted his lean hips and she tensed when she felt the thrusting urgency of his arousal even through his clothing. ‘Let’s forget the talking. It’s getting us nowhere. Come to bed,’ he breathed thickly.

And the hot shivery desire that shot like a sheet of flame through Tally in response to that blunt invitation left no part of her untouched. Her nipples peaked, her breasts swelled and heat and damp gathered between her thighs. She wanted to say yes, she wanted to say yes so badly that the very word was on her lips because she knew that sexual intimacy would ease the terrible tension and allow her to feel close to him again. She was eager for the proof that he still found her desirable, for only that could make her feel in any way secure when he didn’t love her. But on a more rational level she was experiencing a sixth-sense feeling of apprehension that would not let her alone and turned the fever in her blood cold.

‘I think it would be better if I went straight home tonight,’ Tally contended, pulling back from him with strained eyes as she fought the craving he always evoked in her. She did not know how to explain the feelings afflicting her, she only knew that she did not want to add a bout of wild make-up sex to an already volatile situation. She was very much afraid that, willing partner though she would be, sex would only make her feel used because what she really wanted from him just then were reassuring words and feelings, rather than the mindless excitement of his lovemaking. And there was really no point expecting him to deliver the more tender emotions he was not experiencing.

Swinging away from her in receipt of the rare rejection, Sander raked long fingers through his cropped black hair and swore under his breath before breathing rawly, ‘I assumed we would be celebrating.’

‘My hormones are all over the place at the minute,’ Tally muttered apologetically. ‘The last week has been pretty traumatic and I need some down time to think and revise for my exams.’

‘I just don’t know where you’re coming from—’

‘Let’s fix a date for the wedding,’ Tally broke in, her desperation mounting and she shifted closer and stretched up to kiss the corner of his mouth in a soothing gesture of affection.

Unfortunately the gesture failed to work its magic. Sander closed his hands into the torrent of her curls and he held her fast while he plundered her mouth with a dark driving need that speared through her like a lightning bolt. Even so she still wouldn’t surrender to her hunger and she fell back from him, her ripe mouth red and swollen. Eyes cloaked, he gazed down at her moodily and noticed with an unexpected sense of satisfaction that when she smiled dizzily up at him, her dimples were showing again.

‘Three weeks today,’ Tally bargained, keen to smooth away the tension still hardening his lean, dark, devastatingly handsome features. ‘Three weeks today we get married … Okay?’

When she had gone in the taxi he had procured and paid for, Sander reminded himself sardonically that at least on one level he had got what he wanted. Was it too cynical to suspect that she had decided to withhold the voluptuous delights of her curvy little body until she got that wedding ring on her finger? Had the natural candid girl who had initially attracted him only existed in his own imagination? It was a depressing suspicion.

Unusually, Crystal got out of bed to see her daughter when she got home and Tally wasted no time in sharing her news. ‘Sander’s asked me to marry him and we’re thinking of three weeks today if it can be arranged.’

Crystal’s face lit up as though someone had switched on a floodlight inside her and she hugged her daughter in a rare display of physical affection. ‘That’s wonderful, darling! It’ll be a challenge to organise a wedding that fast, but I agree that it would be unwise to wait any longer. Look at what happened to me!’

Tally resisted the temptation to remark that her mother had been the leading light in her own downfall and quietly removed cups from a cupboard to make tea. ‘If Sander does change his mind, I won’t hold it against him. Marriage is a very big step.’

‘So is having a baby. Why should Sander change his mind?’ Crystal demanded sharply as she withdrew a bottle of vodka from another cupboard. ‘No, don’t make me tea. I’m going to celebrate this news with something stronger.’

‘You’ll probably think I’m being stupid but I really don’t want Sander to feel that he has to marry me because I’m pregnant,’ Tally confided in a rush.

‘What does it matter?’ Crystal countered impatiently and then a Cheshire cat grin flashed across her mouth again. ‘Oh, darling, I can’t believe you’ve actually pulled it off!’

Tally’s brow furrowed. ‘Pulled what off?’

‘You’ve caught yourself a multi-millionaire and you’re going to be a respectably married wife. I never got to be a wife!’ her mother pointed out bitterly. ‘I never got the big wedding either, but you’re going to—’

‘Sander doesn’t want a big wedding and he doesn’t want anyone to know about the baby yet,’ Tally cut in uncomfortably, wishing the older woman weren’t quite so impressed by Sander’s wealth but rather touched by her excitement. ‘Mum, I was really shocked when he proposed and I’m worried that he hasn’t really thought it through.’

For an instant, Crystal fell oddly still and veiled her eyes. ‘That’s silly. Why do you always look for problems?’

‘I just don’t think I’m sufficiently beautiful or important enough to marry someone like Sander,’ Tally told her with pained honesty. ‘He’s gorgeous and rich and very successful—’

‘And he’s the father of your child, so you deserve a ring!’ Crystal interrupted forcefully. ‘Why should you struggle for years to bring a kid up on your own?’

‘Lots of other women do.’

‘I want you to have what I never got!’ the older woman declared emotively.

In the days that followed Tally focused on her revision for her final exams and distracted by Sander taking off on a business trip to Brazil and only rarely phoning her, eventually realised in dismay that her mother was living her dream rather than her daughter’s. Once Anatole had been told about the forthcoming nuptials—though not yet about the baby—Tally’s father had confirmed that he would foot all the bills, even though he would not be attending his daughter’s wedding. Crystal hired a top-flight wedding planner and went into action. From that moment on, every bridal extravagance seemed to be in the pipeline, including the appearance of two cousins Tally barely knew to act as bridesmaids in concert with a school friend. In vain did Tally remonstrate with the elaborate arrangements her headstrong parent was making. Even so, it did not occur to her that there might be more widespread repercussions until Sander turned up unannounced at the house the week before the wedding.

‘I didn’t know you were back in London.’ In answer to Binkie’s call, Tally came downstairs. She wished she had known he was coming because she was murderously uncomfortable, greeting him clad in comfortable track pants and a shapeless sweatshirt.

Predictably, Sander looked amazing in a sharply cut navy designer suit and a blue and white striped shirt. His strong jaw line roughened with dark stubble, he trained his dark deep set eyes on her, metallic gold dancing like fiery sparks in his irate gaze, his stunning cheekbones taut below his bronzed skin.

‘What’s wrong?’ Tally prompted instantly, tension gripping her.

‘I believe you had a Save the Date card and a request for a guest list of two hundred people sent to my parents last week—they didn’t even know I was getting married!’ he launched at her in wrathful condemnation. ‘They’ve only just chosen to tell me.’

Tally settled aghast eyes on his lean strong face. ‘You still haven’t told your parents about us?’

In the face of her disbelief, Sander’s lean muscular frame went rigid. ‘It not the sort of announcement you make on the phone. I’m flying home this evening to speak to them.’

‘You should’ve told them the minute we set the date,’ Tally countered defensively, demoralised by his admission that he had yet to discuss his marital plans with his parents. Was he ashamed of her? Or simply trying to forget the fact that he would soon be a married man with a wife and a child on the way?

‘You didn’t warn me that a virtual circus would be kicking off back here in London!’ Sander slung back at her between gritted teeth. ‘I told you I wanted a quiet, quick ceremony. I don’t like superficial show and fuss.’

‘Since you’ve taken absolutely no interest in anything to do with our wedding and have not asked one single question about the arrangements I can’t see why it should matter to you!’ Tally snapped back, the resentments she had squashed for the sake of peace now leaping out to stand toe to toe with his. ‘Do you realise that it’s five days since you even bothered to phone me?’

‘Well, if you think I’m going to start checking in with you all the time like a truant schoolboy you’re in for a big disappointment!’ Sander fired back at her in glowering challenge. ‘Don’t start telling me what I’m supposed to be doing!’

‘Would anyone like coffee?’ Binkie proffered very quietly from the kitchen doorway.

‘Not for me, thank you,’ Sander pronounced stiffly, jerking round to acknowledge the presence of the older woman. ‘I have to get to the office and catch up before I head to Athens, Tally. I doubt if I’ll see you before the wedding now.’

Filled with a disappointment she was determined not to parade for his benefit, Tally folded her arms, her soft pink lips settling into a naturally mutinous pout. ‘I’ll survive.’

‘Tally!’ Binkie pronounced reproachfully as soon as the younger woman had closed the door in Sander’s imperious wake. ‘What’s got into you?’

Tally swallowed hard and veiled her eyes, making no answer. She did not trust herself to speak. Sixth sense was sending streamers of growing apprehension sliding through her but she did not want to acknowledge her secret fears. She did not want to be forced to ask herself whether or not she ought to be marrying a guy as detached from their approaching wedding and from her as Sander currently appeared to be …

Instead, Tally listened to Binkie’s comforting conviction that few men had any patience with bridal extravaganzas, but just at the point when she was tying herself into even deeper mental knots about her bridegroom’s lack of enthusiasm, a special delivery was made.

Taut with lively curiosity, Tally tore open the gift card first to stare down at Sander’s signature before opening the packaging of the small parcel and extracting a jewellery box. She lifted the lid to reveal a glittering diamond ring.

In a daze of surprise, Tally slid it onto her engagement finger and then she phoned Sander, who was already on the way to the airport.

‘Thank you—it’s gorgeous,’ she told him truthfully.

‘You should ditch the exams and come out to Greece with me,’ Sander responded.

That suggestion meant even more than the gift of the ring to Tally and she beamed with happiness and relief. She would have so much enjoyed accompanying him and getting the chance to meet his parents before the wedding. ‘I’d have loved to do that, but I’ve put in three years of hard work at college and I want to graduate this year,’ she told him ruefully.

Everything was really all right between them, Tally persuaded herself that night while she lay trying to get to sleep. The ring had been a thoughtful present, calculated to make her feel more like a normal bride. She needed to stop worrying and concentrate on what was really important. And what was really important was that she was about to marry the man she loved and whose child she carried, she told herself dreamily …