His Forbidden Bride

Zoe flushed. “I don’t think that’s any of your damned business. And I thought the point of this lunch was for me to find out about you.”

“Ask what you want,” he said. “I am ready to answer.”

“Well, your second name might be a start.” She tried to sound casual, not easy when her nerves seemed to be stretched on wires. Oh, what’s the matter with me? she wondered savagely. Any other single girl on holiday would relish being chatted up by someone with half his attraction and sheer charisma. Why can’t I just…go with the flow?

“My second name is Stephanos,” he said. “Andreas Stephanos.”

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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‘I’VE been giving matters a lot of thought,’ said George. ‘And I feel very strongly that you and I should get married.’

Zoe Lambert, who had just taken a mouthful of Chardonnay, managed by a superhuman effort not to choke to death.

If anyone else had made a similarly preposterous suggestion, she would have laughed them to scorn. But she couldn’t do that to George, sitting across from her at the table in the wine bar, with his untidy brown hair, and crooked tie.

George was her friend, one of the few she had at Bishop Cross Sixth Form College, where he was a member of the maths department, and after the weekly staff meeting they usually went for a drink together, but they’d never had a date as such. Nor was there the slightest spark of attraction between them. And even if she’d ever been marginally tempted to fall in love with George, the thought of his mother would have stopped her dead in her tracks.

George’s mother was a frail widow with a tungsten core, and she took no prisoners in her bid to keep her son safely at home with her, an obedient and enslaved bachelor. None of George’s sporadic romantic interests had ever thrived under the frost of her pale blue gaze, and she planned that none of them ever would. And those steely eyes would narrow to slits if she found out that her only son was in the town’s one and only wine bar with Zoe Lambert of all people, let alone proposing marriage.

She took a deep breath. ‘George,’ she said gently. ‘I don’t think…’

‘After all,’ George went on, unheedingly, warming to his theme. ‘You’re going to find things difficult now that you’re—alone. You were so brave all the time your mother was—ill. Now I’d like to look after you. I don’t want you to worry any more about anything.’

Except your mother poisoning my food, thought Zoe. Urged on, no doubt, by her best friend, my aunt Megan.

She winced inwardly as she recalled her aunt’s chilling demeanour at the funeral two weeks earlier. Megan Arnold had curtly accepted the commiserations from her late sister’s friends and neighbours, but had barely addressed a word to the niece who was now her only living relative.

Back at the cottage, after the service, she had refused all offers of food and drink, staring instead, in silent and narrow-eyed appraisal, at her surroundings.

‘Never mind, dearie,’ Mrs Gibb, who’d cleaned the cottage each week for Gina Lambert over the past ten years, whispered consolingly as she went past a mute and bewildered Zoe with a plate of sandwiches. ‘Grief takes some people in funny ways.’

But Zoe could see no evidence of grieving in her aunt’s stony face. Megan Arnold had stayed aloof during her younger sister’s months of illness. And if she was mourning now, she kept it well hidden. And there’d been no sign of her since the funeral either.

Zoe shook away these unpleasant and uneasy reflections, pushed a strand of dark blonde hair back from her face, and looked steadily at her unexpected suitor with clear grey eyes.

‘Are you saying that you’ve fallen in love with me, George?’ she asked mildly.

‘Well—I’m very fond of you, Zoe.’ He played with the stem of his glass, looking embarrassed. ‘And I have the most tremendous respect for you. You must know that. But I don’t think I’m the type for this head-over-heels stuff,’ he added awkwardly. ‘And I suspect you aren’t either. I really think it’s more important for people to be—friends.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I can understand that. And you could be right.’ But not about me, she thought. Oh, please God, not about me.

She swallowed. ‘George, you’re terribly kind, and I do appreciate everything you’ve said, but I’m not going to make any immediate decisions about the future.’ She paused. ‘Losing my mother is still too raw, and I’m not seeing things altogether clearly yet.’

‘Well, I realise that, naturally.’ He reached across the table and patted her hand, swiftly and nervously. ‘And I won’t put any pressure on you, I swear. I’d just like you to—think about what I’ve said. Will you do that?’

‘Yes,’ Zoe told him, mentally crossing her fingers. ‘Of course I will.’

My first marriage proposal, she thought. How utterly bizarre.

He was silent for a moment. ‘If you did think you could marry me at some point,’ he said hesitantly, ‘I wouldn’t want to—rush you into anything, afterwards. I’d be prepared to wait—as long as you wanted.’