Page 60 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

Greek’s Enemy Bride

Caitlin Crews

CHAPTER ONE

ITWASAresoundingly foul day for a wedding.

Not even the splendor of the internationally acclaimed, widely beloved wonder that was the historic Andromeda Hotel, standing proud on one of the loveliest cliffs in the Cyclades, could maintain its trademark resplendence in such a relentless downpour. It was as if the heavens above were as appalled by these particular nuptials as the participants.

Standing beside the great windows overlooking the churning sea in her wedding dress, an understated affair that she had sourced from her closet in an elegant, pearlescent dove gray—because black was too obvious—Jolie Girard felt quietly and personally vindicated.

It looked the way she felt.

But pointed gale sent from the gods as a metaphor or no, this wedding was happening. There was no doubt about that. There was no escaping it, and they’d both tried. They had more than tried.

They had both exhausted every possible legal angle. They had insulted each other in every possible way, then started all over again, and then moved on to insults that had likely left scars that only time would show. The intense arguments after the will had been read had gone on for so long that it was a shock it hadn’t been noted by the ever-hovering paparazzi who had been clustered outside the hotel after the funeral.

There was nothing for it, sadly.

Jolie Girard, widow of the infamous and ancient tycoon Spyros Adrianakis—who had taken his Cretan grandfather’s stately mansion on a less-traveled-to Greek island that his father had made it into a hotel and turned it into a destination that, these days, attracted only the most exclusive and glamorous clientele—was marrying the devil himself.

That being her arrogant and unpleasant stepson, Apostolis Adrianakis, who was also individually famous the world over—mostly for his excesses and colorful romantic entanglements.

Colorful was a euphemism. It was more of a swamp, in Jolie’s opinion.

I will take care of you,Spyros had promised her in his last days.Never fear, Joliemou,I will see to it you are taken care of for the rest of your life.

She should have known better than to believe him. Shedidknow better.

If men could be trusted, after all, the span of her whole life would be different.

It was so dark and gloomy outside that she could see her reflection in the glass, though it was fully morning by now. She adjusted the expression on her face, because the battle was already lost. There was no point giving the irritating Apostolis, her groom, the satisfaction of imagining that she was coming to this wedding diminished in some way.

She would do the diminishing if there was any about, thank you. Just as she would do the allotted time—five eternal years of matrimonial prison—and on the other end of this nightmare, she would be free.

Jolie would finally be free. Her cousin Mathilde would also be free, because that was the bargain she’d made. And she could go off and do...whatever it was she wanted.

Maybe she would know what that was by then.

She felt a prickling down the length of her spine and then, a moment later, saw a shadow pull itself into the form of a man in the doorway behind her, like some kind of fairy-tale monster.

He was not a monster, she told herself stoutly. He only wished he was.

The truth about Apostolis Adrianakis was that he was no more and no less than a man.

Jolie intended to remind him of that, should he be tempted to believe his own press and consider himself something more akin to a deity. Or anything supernatural at all.

She turned to face him because he might not be a monster, but that didn’t mean she fancied having him at her back. Might as well bare her neck and belly while she was at it—

But the visual that accompanied that thought landed...wrong.

Because she was looking directly at him as she envisionedbaringany part of herself andlooking at himhad always been deeply problematic.

Much as she might wish otherwise, another unfortunate truth about Apostolis Adrianakis was that he was darkly gorgeous, impossibly beguiling despite his many obvious personality flaws, and almost hypnotically magnetic. Even to someone like her, who was no fan of his. It was no wonder that the better part of the earth’s population followed him around with stars in their eyes.

Jolie did not believe in gods, Greek or otherwise, but it was impossible not to look at Apostolis and wonder if maybe, just maybe, they were still wandering the earth. If they had taken to islands like this one and now lurked in villages rife with celebrities and holidaymakers in the summer, whispering their own legends and myths from every charming alley. If they were made of flashing dark eyes in a shockingly beautiful face crafted to wedge itself between the ribs of anyone who dared glance his way.

Perhaps, she thought sharply, she ought to have been grateful that he came by his arrogance naturally. It was better than the alternative. She could not imagine what a chore it would be to deal with a man who imagined himself as indisputably magnificent—visually, anyway—as Apostolis, yet wasn’t.

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