Thanasis’s luck had turned one-eighty, but this luck was on a knife-edge. Lucie’s amnesia was a blessing but he couldn’t predict how long it would last, and now he was being forced into a risky game that upped the stakes considerably.
It was time to up the game to match the stakes and step into the shoes of the man Lucie thought him to be. If her memories returned before the wedding she’d run from his life all over again, and this time she really would destroy everything.
* * *
By the time night fell on Lucie’s third day in hospital—technically her fifth but she didn’t count the first two as she’d been sedated—she was seriously contemplating asking the medical team to sedate her mother. If she’d known it would take a traumatic head injury to make her do some actual mothering, she’d never have got behind a wheel because her mother’s definition of actual mothering was doing Lucie’s poorly head in. It was the non-stop chatter about the wedding, the constant emphasis about how wonderful it was all going to be, what a beautiful couple Lucie and Thanasis made and what a happy marriage they were going to have, how wonderful it was that the feud between the two families had come to an end because of it, plus the constant need to fill Lucie in on all the details about the wedding itself, the world-famous singers who’d be performing for them, the guest list, the catering, yada-yada-yada. All this while constantly watching Lucie with an anxious scrutiny she’d not shown a shred of when Lucie had caught the flu over the Christmas holidays a decade ago. The only Tsaliki to brave a visit had been Athena, who quite rightly assumed no germ would dare latch itself into her system. When Lucie had finally recovered from it, she’d been surprised to find her mother hadn’t marked her bedroom door with a big red X.
All her mum’s chattering meant she’d found herself grateful for all the sleep her body currently demanded. Lots and lots of sleep. So much sleep that she could feel herself coming out of the fog, becoming more lucid and less dreamlike. She didn’t feel sick any more either, which was a blessing because Lucie hated feeling sick; hated feeling too ill to eat. Give her a headache over sickness any day of the week. And now she had neither, although she was certain her headache would be back with a vengeance at the rate her mother was talking. If she didn’t know better, she’d assume her mother was deliberately distracting her from having to think.
For all that her mother was doing her head in, in one respect she was grateful for this late onset maternal blossoming—her mother’s constant presence meant she’d only spent snatches of time alone with Thanasis.
Like her mother, he was a constant presence at Lucie’s bedside. Unlike her mother, he rarely spoke, which in fairness was because her mum never stopped talking long enough for him to get a word in edgeways.
He rarely spoke but every time Lucie glanced at him she found his green gaze on her. Every time, a frisson would snake up her spine.
With no memories to fall back on it was impossible to know if she really had fallen in love with this man but her reactions were telling her she’d feltsomethingfor him. And, as incredible as it was to believe, something in the way he looked at her told her he’d felt something for her too, and she didn’t know if it was relief or anxiety she felt when her mother finally announced she was going home to get some sleep. The other times her mother had left her alone with Thanasis, Lucie had been deep in sleep herself.
‘I’ll be back in the morning in time for the results of your scan, darling,’ she said as she placed a kiss to Lucie’s forehead. ‘Let’s hope they give you the all-clear to be discharged.’
Lucie smiled wanly. ‘Fingers crossed.’
She watched her mother swish to the door, certain she wasn’t imagining the significant look she threw at Thanasis before she disappeared through it. Lucie would have wondered what the look was about if she hadn’t been so immediately aware that she was alone with the stranger she was shortly to marry.
A stranger she instinctively knew without her mother having to keep banging on about it that she shared something with, a short but significant history her brain refused to reveal.
It took an immense amount of courage to turn her face to him.
Their eyes locked.
‘Is it just me or have you suddenly gone deaf too?’ she asked, going into her default mode of cracking a joke to cover an awkward silence even though it wasn’t awkward she was predominantly feeling but, inexplicably, shy. Lucie couldn’t remember ever feeling shy, not once in her whole life.
Lines appeared around his eyes as his perfect teeth flashed before his expression softened and he hunched forward to gently cover her hand. ‘How are you really feeling,matia mou?’
‘Better. Much less fuzzy.’ Although the sensation of Thanasis’s hand on hers made her glad the medical team had detached the sticky things on her chest that measured her heart rate, or the whole hospital staff would be kicking the door down to see what had caused the massive spike in it.
He was just so dreamily handsome, with his dark brown hair and thick stubble, and the deep olive hue of his skin and those mesmerising eyes and full lips. As hard as she looked, she couldn’t find a single flaw, not unless you counted the lines that formed around his eyes when he gave one of his rare smiles, which she didn’t because they gave perfection an extra dimension.
‘That is good to hear.’ Broad shoulders lifting, he rubbed his thumb over her palm sending sensation dancing through her skin. ‘Do you feel well enough in yourself to go home if the scans show it’s safe?’
She nodded, then hesitated before asking, ‘Where is home for me now?’
‘With me.’ He bowed his head and gently brushed his lips to her fingers.
Warm breath danced fleetingly over her skin. The beats of her heart spiked again.
So itwastrue. They had fallen for each other, and as this thought swirled, she thought of the Montagues and Capulets…and then remembered how that particular story ended and quickly strove for a different comparison.
‘Do we live in Athens?’ she asked when no other comparison came to her.
‘We have been, but when you are discharged I would like to take you to Sephone.’ At her uncomprehending look, he smiled. It was like being doused in a ray of sunlight. ‘Sephone is my island.’
‘You have your own island? Seriously?’
‘When we are married it will beourisland. It is a secluded paradise. You will love it there, I promise.’
‘You’ve not taken me before?’
‘There hasn’t been the time, but as you need peace to recover and we are due to marry there, it is the perfect setting for you to recuperate before our big day…that is if you still want to marry me?’ He posed the question casually but there was a shadowy flickering in his eyes that made her pulses thump.
