GREEK HUSBAND

Chapter 42

A knock sounded on the door and he pulled back from her. A waiter brought in champagne. Flustered by the power of that compellingly provocative kiss and shaken by the thought that she was actually going to marry Edward, Bella backed away to the window to practice breathing again.

Edward extended a champagne flute to her. 'To our future.'

'I shouldn't drink.'

'One sip for the sake of it,' Edward suggested.

Bella touched the flute to her mouth, moistening her lips.

'I'll set up a shopping trip for you today. You need clothes.' Unusually, Edward hesitated. 'Marina has offered to help out.'

'Marina?' Bella exclaimed, wide-eyed.

'We're still good friends. She's probably feeling a bit guilty that she approached you yesterday to buy you off because that sort of behavior really isn't her style,' Edward remarked with a wry roll of his eyes. 'What you see is what you get with Marina. But if you would feel uncomfortable with her, I'll make a polite excuse...'

In the taut silence, Bella swallowed with difficulty, her mind functioning at top speed. Edward's ex-fiancée was offering her in preparing for their shotgun wedding out of a genuine desire to be helpful. Bella's curiosity about the unconventional nature of Marina's relationship with Edward literally shot into the stratosphere at that revelation. Evidently, their ties of friendship had withstood the breaking off of the engagement and the bitterness that Marina had briefly revealed, and that more than anything else impressed Bella and made her want to know more.

'No, don't make an excuse. It's an unusual situation but I think that Marina's kind gesture should be met with equal generosity,' Bella pronounced, hoping that she was making the right decision and not setting herself up as a target for the sort of spiteful comments of the type her cousin and her aunt had specialized in.

'FROM A PRACTICAL point of view, I've been up to my throat in wedding arrangements for the past few weeks, so I know exactly what I'm doing and who to contact,' Marina proffered as she sat beside Bella in the back of Edward's opulent limousine an hour later.

'But there isn't enough time to organize anything fancy.'

'When a man is as rich as Edward is, there are always people willing to meet a challenge for a substantial bonus,' the brunette told her drily.

'But why should you help us?' Bella asked baldly, no longer able to swallow back that burning and obvious question.

'I have my pride. First and foremost, I would prefer our friends to believe that the break-up was amicable rather than inspire a pity party,' Marina fielded wryly. 'I've also since had a radical rethink about my own future. Yesterday when I went to meet you I was fighting to preserve the status quo but, having cooled down, I'm now more inclined to think that Edward and I were just treading water and never meant to be. My father is deeply disappointed that he's not getting his dream whiz-kid son-in-law but I'm afraid I want to do what's right for me.'

'You're being very understanding.'

Marina laughed. 'Not as understanding as you probably think. To be frank, I have someone else in my life too and I believe that eventually, Zack will make me happier than Edward ever would have done.'

Bella absorbed that unexpected admission without visible reaction. Yet it was undeniably a relief for her to learn that the svelte brunette was not the innocent and cruelly betrayed fiancée Bella had initially assumed she was. 'Even so, you and Edward still seem to be very close.'

'But there was always a flaw in our relationship.' Marina turned to look at Bella with a self-mocking light in her lively dark eyes. 'Although most men consider me attractive Edward never wanted me the way he wanted you.'

'I can't believe that,' Bella said uncomfortably, her face burning with sudden heat.

Marina grimaced. 'It's true and his detachment was bad for my ego. However, because we were friends from a young age, Edward believed we were an ideal match.'

'But you must've loved Edward as well,' Bella incised, cutting through the brunette's frustratingly guarded comments.