Wedding Night with a Stranger. Anna Cleary

world she’d been deflowered, dishonoured, and still had no husband to show for it. And what else was a woman for, in her aunt’s old-fashioned view, except to be a wife and mother?

      ‘I told you, Thea. He was unfaithful. You know it. He had a lover.’

      Even from a hemisphere away she could hear her aunt’s world-weary sigh. ‘Oh, grow up, Ariadne. If you want to bear children you have to compromise, and put up with—things. Anyway, there is no use in all this arguing. Your uncle won’t change his mind.’

      ‘He has made a mistake, Aunt. This man won’t take an unwilling wife. If you met him you’d know. He’s not…He’s an Australian. He will walk away. Could you please…please, Thea, transfer enough money into my account for the hotel bill?’

      She could hear tears in her aunt’s voice. ‘Toula, if it were up to me…of course I would. Listen, when you’re married all your money will be settled on you. Your uncle loves you. He thinks this is right. He only wants the best for you.’

      ‘He always thinks he knows best, and this isn’t best,’ she said fiercely. ‘And I won’t do it. Tell him there’s no way anyone will force Sebastian Nikosto to go through with marrying an unwilling woman.’

      Her aunt was silent for a second. Then she said in a dry voice, ‘Oh, yes, he will. He certainly will go through with it. As I understand it, there’s nothing he wants more.’

      ‘What are you saying?’ Ariadne said, seized by an icy foreboding. ‘Why do you think that?’

      ‘Oh…’ Her aunt’s voice sounded weary, more distant somehow. ‘You know I don’t know about business, Ariadne. Your uncle says Sebastian knows he has everything to gain from this marriage, and everything to lose if he doesn’t choose it. His company will fail if he doesn’t marry you. Celestrial. Isn’t that what it’s called?’

      Sebastian rang the bell of his parents’ house, then strode straight in. He should have been back in his office, combing through the departments for more ways to cut costs to avoid cutting people, but events had wrenched his unwilling attention in another direction.

      Before he took another false step, he needed to do some research. There had to be some explanation of why he of all the eligible Greeks on the planet had been chosen as bridegroom to the niece of Peri Giorgias.

      When Giorgias had thrown in that extra clause at the time the contract was all but finalised, the completed designs on the table, at first it had seemed nothing more than a bizarre joke. The cunning old fox had chosen his moment well. With Celestrial suddenly adrift in the recession, the market dwindling, the sly operator must have known if he pulled out then, Celestrial would make a significant loss in terms of the precious resources already used to develop the bid.

      In the gut-wrenching moment when Sebastian had understood that the eccentric old magnate’s demand was deadly serious, he was faced with a grim choice. Accept the woman and save his company, guarantee the livelihoods of his workforce, or walk away and face the possible ruin of all he’d built.

      But why him? Why not some rich lothario back in Hellas?

      Angelika, his mother, and Danae, his married sister, were ensconced in the kitchen, arguing with the cook over the best method of preparing some delicacy. Angelika interrupted her tirade with hugs, and a multitude of solicitous enquiries concerning his diet and sleep patterns. Danae listened to all of it with an amused expression and an occasional solemn nod.

      Sebastian shot his sister a glance. She might have been amused, but he was willing to bet she was soaking up the technique so she’d know how to suffocate her own sons when the time came for them to escape from her control.

      ‘Look at how thin you are,’ his mother wailed like a Greek mother. ‘What you need is a really good dinner. Maria, set him a place. I have a moussaka in the fridge I was saving for tomorrow’s lunch, but this is the bigger emergency. Danae, put it in a box and he can take it home with him. Show that woman how to feed a man.’

      He held up his hand. ‘No, thanks, Maria.’ A really good dinner was his mother’s inevitable cure for any disorder from flu to insomnia. ‘I’m not staying.’ He waved away the proffered dish. ‘Put it back. I do have a full-time housekeeper, you know. And Agnes is very touchy about her cooking.’

      His mother snorted her contempt. ‘Cooking? What cooking? The trouble with you, my son, you are too wrapped up in your satellites to see what’s in front of your nose.’

      His nephews caught sight of him then and came running with a thousand urgent things they needed to tell him at once.

      Sebastian listened as patiently as time would allow to all the recent details of their exuberant young lives, while Danae looked on, beaming with maternal pride.

      Eventually, he detached himself with a laugh. ‘That’s enough,’ he said, ruffling the two four-year-old heads. He waited for a brief respite in the voluble trio of voices, then jumped in with a query of his own. ‘Is Yiayia here?’

      His mother tilted her head in the direction of the hall. ‘In the orangery.’

      Sebastian approached quietly, in case his grandmother was having a late afternoon nap. He needn’t have been concerned.

      Dressed in her gardening smock, her hair coiled loosely into a bun, the small, frail woman was up and active, struggling to lift a terracotta pot onto a bench.

      ‘None of that,’ Sebastian said, striding forward and removing it from her worn hands. ‘You know what the doctor said, Yiayia.’

      ‘Oh, pouf. Doctors,’ his grandmother exclaimed while Sebastian positioned the pot in the miniature rainforest that was her pride and joy, adorning every available space. ‘What do they know?’

      She peeled off her gloves and reached up, tilting her soft, lined cheek for his kiss.

      Sebastian obliged, declining to argue, knowing she worshipped the members of the medical profession as though their words were piped direct from heaven.

      ‘Well, glikia-mou. Now, what are you about?’ She settled herself into a high-backed wicker chair draped with shawls, while Sebastian sat facing her.

      Filtered by leaves both inside and out, the afternoon sun slanted through the glass walls, bathing the room in a greenish light.

      Sebastian made himself relax, aware he was being examined by an almost supernaturally astute observer of human frailty. ‘Do you remember the Giorgias family?’

      Her elderly brows lifted. ‘From Naxos?’ He nodded, and she said, ‘Of course. From when I was a child. There was always a Giorgias in our house. My father and their father were friends.’

      ‘Do you remember Pericles Giorgias?’

      ‘Ah.’ She gave a sage nod. ‘Of course I remember him. He was the one who inherited the shipyard, and the boats. He married Eleni Kyriades. He was such a generous man. It was he who helped your father when the stores nearly collapsed back in the eighties.’

      Sebastian tensed. ‘How do you mean, he helped Papa? Are you sure?’

      ‘For sure I’m sure. When the banks wouldn’t help Pericles made your father a loan. To be repaid without interest over a very long time. No strings attached.’ She shook her head in wonderment. ‘Such a rare thing, generosity.’

      Dismay speared through Sebastian. Such generosity was rare indeed. But there’d been strings attached, all right. Strings of honour. With grim comprehension he recognised the situation. The Nikostos were now under an obligation to the Giorgiases. For some reason Peri Giorgias required a favour, and he’d chosen to collect from the son of his debtor.

      A son for a father. A favour for a favour.

      He could almost hear the clang as the trap snapped shut around him. Chained to a stranger in wedlock.

      In an attempt to break free from the vice sinking its teeth into his gut, he got up and