Wild hope flared within me even as bewilderment mounted. If he didn’t want this then there might be room to negotiate. Room to get what I wanted out of this.

Realising I was staring, and that my father had been dispatched and I was now the sole focus of Axios Xenakis’ eyes, I hurriedly averted my gaze. But not before acknowledging that up close he was even more electrifying. Perhaps it was the severity of his grey suit. Or the fact that the hand he held out to me screamed a silent command.

The last strains of the hymn trailed away, leaving behind a charged silence. With each second it weighed heavier, pressing down on me.

His hand extended another inch, and heavy expectation thickened the air.

With a deep breath, inevitably I slipped my hand into his—and joined the stranger who was to be my husband.

Almost immediately he released me. But the sensation of his touch lingered, and a sizzling chain reaction I was unprepared for travelled up my arm, flaring wide.

It was enough momentarily to drown out the intonation of the priest’s voice as he began the ceremony.

I rallied long enough to murmur the words I’d reluctantly memorised and, when the time came, to pick up the larger of the two platinum wedding bands.

With fingers that still trembled I faced Axios. The impact of his eyes, his towering frame, the much too handsome face momentarily erased the words from my brain.

In silence he held out his left hand, his laser eyes boring into me as he simply...waited.

‘I take thee...’

‘For better or worse...’

‘With my body...’

‘Love, honour, cherish...’

‘Till death...’

With each spoken vow my heart squeezed tighter, the mechanical delivery I’d expected to give morphing into a whispered outpouring wrapped in consternation.

The second I was done he reached for the other ring without taking his eyes off me, again holding out his hand for mine.

And then Axios Xenakis spoke for the first time.

‘I, Axios Xenakis, take thee, Calypso Athena Petras...’

The rest of his words were lost to me as the deep, hypnotic cadence of his voice struck like Zeus’s thunderbolt into a place I didn’t even know existed until that moment.

His voice was...sexy. Alluring. Magnetic.

It seemed impossible that a voice could be all those things, and yet I felt every one.

The cold brush of platinum on my skin brought me back to myself just in time to hear the priest announce us as man and wife. To say that my new husband could now kiss me.

I started to turn away. Because this was a far cry from a normal wedding ceremony. And we were far removed from two people in love.

Large, firm hands cupped my shoulders, shocking me into stillness. Unable to stop a cascade of light shivers, I held my breath as he lifted the heavy veil and draped it behind me with unhurried movements. I watched his gaze take in my bound hair, the small headband made of tiny diamonds and pearls that had belonged to Yiayia Helena and the similar necklace adorning my throat.