Page 63 of Modern Romance Collection December 2024 Books 5-8

But it had been booked solid two years running now, and almost at full capacity the year before that. With repeat customers and a waiting list that grew by the day.

Spyros claimed that the hotel ran on themythof itself. He therefore insisted that Jolieactas if all she did was waft about, catching the perfect light and making other men jealous of what they could never touch. Hergrubby little figures,as he called her bookkeeping and actual administration of managerial duties, were always to be kept a secret.

Far better the guests should think the hotel ran itself.

Jolie agreed. Myths and legends were far more appealing than ledgers and vendors and besides, managing the hotel was the one thing Spyros let her do without supervision or much commentary.

It had been her escape. She should have known that Spyros would exact a price for that, too.

Today, their wedding was being squeezed into a morning when their current high-profile celebrity guest and his entourage had gotten stuck on another island, thanks to the storm. They had been waiting for a window just like this.

And bywaitingJolie meanthoping fervently for a windowless season.

Because here at the Hotel Andromeda, the goal was the near invisibility of not just Jolie’s true role, but of all the staff. Their guests preferred to operate under the impression that it was magic at work. Intuitive, effortless magic.

A wedding between non-guests would ruin that illusion.

Jolie fixed her face into something smooth and impenetrable as Apostolis walked with her into the little room they used to serve breakfast over the sea, sometimes the odd high tea, and so on.

Waiting there, looking equal parts concerned and anxious, were their witnesses. The sum total of their wedding party and guests. Dioni, who looked as scattered as ever, her dark hair falling down from the twist she’d attempted to secure it in, and, as ever, her dress not quite in place. It had used to drive their headmistress batty. She could oversee Dioni’s wardrobe and dressing herself, and yet within two breaths, Dioni would somehow have the perfect ensemble looking...unkempt. Hems frayed at the merest contact with her. Straps never stayed put. She always lookedever so slightlybedraggled, as if elegance was a gene and it had passed her by entirely.

It was the first moment all morning that Jolie felt emotional, and she had to fight to keep that to herself. There was no place for emotion here, not even for her only friend.

But the cure for stray feelings was to look to the other side of the room, where the man who was somehow Apostolis’s dearest friend in all the world stood. There were a number of things Jolie found impossible about Alceu Vaccaro. The most glaring was the fact that he had any friends at all, but especially Apostolis. Alceu was a stern, brooding, unforgiving sort of man from Sicily, with a grim mouth and an iron gaze that she was fairly certain would make every tropical flower in Greece wilt at once if he wished it.

It was hard for her to imagine a man like that giving an international playboy and professional wastrel like Apostolis the time of day.

Much less showing up for him at this tragic mockery of a wedding.

But here they all were.

Jolie felt a bit as if she was retreating to some higher plane, where she could look down on these proceedings from afar, as Apostolis shook hands with his supposedfriend. And had to allow that it seemed more than possible that they really were friends then, because the grim Sicilian actually smiled. Slightly.

Then Apostolis was taking her arm again and they were standing in front of the priest, who looked unduly jolly, given the circumstances.

Beside her, Dioni held a bouquet of flowers, because of course she did. She offered them to Jolie.

“Keep them,” Jolie murmured. “The ceremony feels flowerless to me.”

Dioni sighed. “I can’t imagine a flowerless wedding,” she said softly. “What’s the point?”

That was another thing Jolie had always adored about her friend. She was the product of all of this wealth and outrageous consequence, rubbing elbows with some of the most extravagant people to grace the planet, and yet somehow the core of her was still so innocent. Her father had called hermatia mou,his eyes. And he’d meant it, as far as that went for a man like Spyros.

Jolie had understood that Dioni would not have the sort of life she’d had. Dioni would be allowed to choose the life she would live. Dioni could even marry for love, if she wished.

Dioni did not have the family Jolie did, Jolie reminded herself. She was mercifully free of the kinds of pressures that Jolie had been navigating for years now. If she had to, she thought then with a certain ferocity, she would do whatever she could to keep it that way.

The same way she kept her cousin safe, she would do it for Dioni, too. If she needed to.

Though she supposed that would not be necessary. Apostolis could be a monster, it was true, but not where his little sister was concerned.

The priest cleared his throat.

Jolie took one last look at Apostolis, soaking in this last moment of blessed widowhood before he became her husband.

He looked back, that gleaming gold thing in his gaze, but his expression unusually serious.

For a moment, it was as if she could read his mind.

---