Page 60 of Modern Romance September 2025 1-4

Of all his many siblings, Athena was the one Alexis had always struggled the most to like, and it had nothing to do with her being the only female sibling.

He loved her and would protect her with his life, but she had a bitchy streak that rivalled their stepmother’s, and it was Athena who was responsible for knocking the first domino that had led to their stepsister, the bride, running away.

For all his cool words to the Antoniadises, Alexis did not have confidence that the Tsalikis could get through this unscathed, not after everything that had already happened.

They were all at the precipice, closer to falling into the abyss than they’d ever been, and it was down to him to make sure they all knew and understood what was at stake.

‘I mean it,’ he said grimly, addressing Athena directly. ‘You do not breathe a word of what’s happened here. We can only hope that Lucie doesn’t go running to the press—’

‘She won’t,’ a dull-eyed Thanasis interjected.

‘I agree that it’s unlikely.’ His stepsister had a visceral hatred of the press.

‘And so we all play the long game.’ For a moment he lost his train of thought, his words pulling him back three months.

He blinked the memory away and studiously avoided seeking out the hazel eyes of the woman he’d once delivered those same words to.

‘We play the long game,’ he reiterated, ‘and ride it out. We say nothing because anything we do say can be contradicted if—and I know it’s an unlikely if—Lucie speaks out or releases a statement. ’

Addressing Athena directly again, he spoke slowly and elucidated every word. ‘If you speak about this to anyone outside these walls, I will see that you’re cut off. That goes for all of you.’

Outrage came from half a dozen voices, including his usually gregarious father who, like Petros Antoniadis, had spent the entire meeting mute. Both family patriarchs had retreated into themselves.

Alexis slammed his fist on the table. ‘Enough! Athena is lucky that she’s still allowed to call herself a Tsaliki.

The wedding might be off but the peace brokered between myself and Thanasis isn’t.

’ He put a finger lightly to the cut on his lip caused by Thanasis’s fist. ‘The only thing that’s over is the war between our two families. ’

Lydia sensed movement and had just enough time to brace herself before the figure appeared from the shadows. It had been the longest day of her life and was only going to get longer. Everything she’d had to cope with so far would be a piece of cake compared to what was coming for her now.

The hulking figure sank heavily onto the sand beside her.

For the longest time, neither of them spoke. The air, though, spoke with a tension thick enough to slice with a spoon.

‘So we’re going to be parents,’ he eventually said.

‘Yes.’

‘And you want to marry me.’

‘No.’

He grunted a laugh. ‘I would never allow a child of mine to suffer and that includes suffering with poverty. You don’t need me to marry you for that—I will give you everything you need and more.’

Lydia lifted her gaze to the stars, She thought the night sky was why she loved Sephone so much.

Here, the lack of light pollutants made the stars shine brighter and in millions times greater numbers than anywhere else on earth.

Anywhere that she’d ever been in any case, and it broke her heart for all her family that Thanasis would probably have to sell it.

‘I’m sorry, Alexis,’ she said in as steady a voice as she could manage, ‘but I need the security of marriage.’

‘You don’t,’ he contradicted firmly.

‘My parents are going to disown me. They will never accept a grandchild who’s half Tsaliki and they will never forgive me for…for…’ She swallowed to force her next words out. ‘For sleeping with you.’

And they had slept. It hadn’t just been all sex.

For two beautiful nights they’d turned their phones off and hidden from the world in his bedroom.

They’d talked and talked about anything and everything that wasn’t their families, watched old films and fallen asleep entwined in each other’s arms. It had been the most magical time of her life.

‘They won’t disown you,’ he said tightly. ‘You Antoniadises are a close-knit bunch.’

‘My mother will see it as a betrayal. She hates you more than my father does. I think he only ever hated your father, but my mother hates all of you and when she finds out she will hate me too.’

‘She loves you.’

‘That won’t stop her from hating me. She didn’t speak to her sister for seven years because she found out my aunt had gone to a party hosted by the school bully who’d made Mum’s life a misery.

She holds onto her grudges and does not forgive.

I need security for me and the baby, and I need it now.

I need to wake up and know that no matter what happens, we’ll have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. ’

‘I’ll buy you a house and pay for its upkeep.’

‘And what if you decide to take it away from me or stop paying the bills towards it? I’d be at your mercy and I can’t do that any more.

It’s only since I found out I’m pregnant that I see how entirely at my family’s mercy I am.

I live in a cottage on the grounds but it’s not mine, it’s theirs.

I make a living selling my designs to clothing and fabric companies but I’ve not built a big enough name to sustain myself—I suppose I never really needed to as the company shares my parents assigned me when I was born have always given me a decent income, but that’s going to be ripped away with everything else.

I’ve always had a mental safety net around me and it’s all being ripped away and when my parents learn about the baby they will cut me off and I’ll be on my own and I will have nothing.

Being on my own frightens me enough but being on my own with a baby to feed terrifies me.

‘As your wife, you won’t be able to just throw me out and leave me with nothing. I’ll sign whatever prenuptial agreement you want—marriage won’t cost you anything more than it would if you were to just buy me a house.’

In the silence that followed, the beats of Lydia’s heavy heart seemed to speed up to a burr, its weight compressing her stomach.

This was a conversation she’d never wanted to have.

Never expected to have. The marriage between her brother and Lucie Burton was supposed to save their business and fortune, and even if her parents turned their backs on her, Thanasis never would.

She’d longed to confide in him but he’d been under so much stress trying to save the business and convincing the world that his fake engagement was true love that she’d not wanted to add to his burden, not until after the wedding.

All her plans had been ripped away in the same way her future was being, and the only thing that mattered, the only thing she could allow to matter, was the tiny life nestled in her womb.

‘Say I go along with this mad idea,’ the father of her tiny life said slowly. ‘What’s in it for me?’

Lydia closed her eyes at the virtual repeat of words spoken all those months ago.

‘You’ll be able to watch our child grow up and be as involved…

or not…as you wish.’ She forced a smile to her face so the movements would inject lightness into her voice to deliver what she knew would be the greatest selling point to him.

‘And just think what an excellent excuse having a wife in the background of your life will give you when your lovers become too demanding of your time. I won’t make any demands on you or your time—you’ll be able to live your life exactly as you’ve always lived it.

I won’t even have to live with you. I’ll be your wife in name only. ’

Alexis Tsaliki was a serial seducer. Flirting came as naturally to him as breathing.

He didn’t even have to try. All he had to do was fix those hypnotic blue-grey eyes on a woman and she was his.

Lydia should know. That was how it had been for her.

She hadn’t gone to that nightclub with the intention to seduce or be seduced—talking to him had been the only thing on her mind—but Alexis had a power about him that turned a level-headed adult female into a creature held hostage by its own desires.

She couldn’t even blame it on the champagne or tequila.

He’d made her heart beat faster from the moment he’d slid into the booth beside her.

By the time he’d invited her back to his apartment her body had become such a hot mess of desire for him that if he’d suggested going outside for a quick knee-trembler instead, she’d have given the same answer.

Until she’d met Alexis, she’d never had a fling; never even considered one.

In her twenty-seven years she’d had two lovers, both long-term, serious relationships with serious, arty men who wouldn’t be seen dead in a boardroom or in a suit.

Neither had come within a fraction of thrilling her or rousing the woman in her as Alexis had done.

A man like Alexis Tsaliki was untameable.

Only a fool would let themselves believe otherwise and Lydia was no fool.

She’d gone to his apartment with her eyes wide open—his sexploits were legendary in Greek society—and what had been a spontaneous magically, passionately glorious one-off for her was just a regular weekend of fun to him.

That was why when she’d woken late on the Sunday morning racked with a tsunami of emotions she’d never felt before, including guilt for such a heinous betrayal to her family, she’d made sure to be the one to say their weekend together had been a one-off that no one could ever know about.

While he’d carried on with his life, no doubt not giving her even a passing thought, she’d thought about him practically every second of every minute of every day.

Her weekend with Alexis had been the best worst mistake of her life.

‘Okay,’ he eventually said in that same slow, thoughtful voice. ‘I’ll do it.’

Her heart jumped into her throat. ‘You’ll marry me?’

She hadn’t expected it to be that easy. That quick.

‘Yes.’ She felt his stare land on her skin. ‘But I have conditions.’

‘Anything.’ This was no time for pride. Her family could be bankrupt in weeks and within that timeframe there was a very good chance the pregnancy would start showing. She couldn’t keep this a secret much longer. She needed to sort her and her baby’s future out now.

‘If I’m going to marry you then it’s on condition that it’s a real marriage.’