The Greek's Forgotten Wife (Boarding School #1)
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Authors: Elizabeth Lennox
The Boarding School Series: Book 1
The Greek’s Forgotten Wife
By Elizabeth Lennox
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Copyright 2015
ISBN13: 9781940134833
All rights reserved
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Any duplication of this material, either electronic or any other format, either currently in use or a future invention, is strictly prohibited unless you have the direct consent of the author.
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Table of Contents
Excerpt from The Duke’s Blackmailed Bride, Next in the Series
Before you venture into the story of Damon and Sasha, get a bit of background first. It is not required to enjoy this story, but it will give you history into the characters that are introduced in this story – and the series. Go to
www.ElizabethLennox.com
or your favorite e-book retailer and read
The Boarding School Series Introduction
stories about Scarlett, Damon, Grayson, Stefan, Malik and Harrison as children – how they met and why they are still good friends now.
London, Six Years Ago…
Sasha Monetti’s eyes widened as she answered the door and discovered an elderly man, stooped over and leaning heavily on a cane. “Can I help you?” she asked. Behind the man, Sasha noticed two larger, scarier looking men.
The elderly man pushed the door wider with his cane as he moved inside; the two larger men took up sentry positions outside the door. “The correct greeting should be ‘May I help you?’ but I don’t expect you to know that,” the old man sneered. He walked in and surveyed the small cottage, dismissing the dwelling with a disparaging sweep of his rheumy eyes.
Furious, Sasha slammed the door on the two sentries. She moved around the old man, trying to block him from coming further into her house. “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?” Sasha demanded.
The elderly man turned and looked her up and down. “You don’t know who I am?” he demanded, grunting as he shook his head. He snorted as he sat down in a nearby wingback chair. “Don’t bother offering coffee or tea. The coffee in this painfully cold and wet country is pathetic and I can’t stand the idea of tea. Just sit down.”
Sasha couldn’t believe her ears. This man dared to enter her home and treat her like this? Was he some sort of police officer? He didn’t look like any of the officers she’d met, but then again, how many officers had she run into? She was a college student with very little money, so she couldn’t afford to hang out at bars and get drunk, the only place she might run into officers of the law.
She pulled her shoulders back, angry and more than a little offended. She suspected she should also be nervous about this stranger in her house, but she didn’t get that “danger” sense from him. The men standing out on her front porch? Definitely getting a danger vibe from them but not this man. He was just insulting. “I’m sorry, but if you don’t get out of this house right now, I will call the authorities.”
The man cackled at her words. “Go ahead. Call the police and have your grandfather kicked out. See if I help you then.”
Sasha couldn’t believe her ears. Her grandfather? She looked at him carefully, not sure if she believed him or not. “You’re my grandfather?” she whispered. “You’re actually here?” she breathed, excitement beginning to replace anger – conflicting feelings rushing through her with the possibility. And then the resemblance to that small picture of her father hit her and she recognized the truth of his words. Sitting down in the only other chair in the room, she placed her hands over her mouth, excitement welling up inside of her. “Oh, goodness, I’m so sorry. I should have recognized you.”
The man smoothed his perfectly straight tie down over his rotund stomach. “No reason you should, girl. I can’t imagine your mother would have done anything to help you recognize me, or perhaps even to know anything about me.”
Sasha inched forward on the chair, her mind scattering with all of the questions she anxiously wanted to ask this man. “You don’t know what a thrill is it to finally meet someone from my father’s family.” Her slender fingers moved up, covering her mouth to try and control some of the excitement surging through her. “Oh goodness, this is such a delightful surprise.”
The man rolled his eyes and sighed impatiently, dismissing her enthusiasm, then looked up at her. “Forget the stupid familial bonding, girl. I haven’t the time. You wanted help. I’m here to help.”
Sasha’s mouth fell open with those scornful words. “Stupid familial bonding” she repeated in her mind, unable to understand why the phrase was so harsh. This was her grandfather! Why was he acting like this? She’d never had a grandparent in her life, having lived most of her teenage years with only her mother, but this wasn’t anything like she’d always hoped for from her father’s father. Sasha was confused. “You’re here to help but…”
The man sniffed as if he smelled something offensive. “I don’t want to dwell on the details. Suffice it to say, you want something from me and I want something from you.”
She was dumbfounded. “You’re not here to see me?”
The man grunted with disgust. “Not even the slightest bit of interest on my part, other than what you can do for me.”
Sasha sat up straighter, not sure what to say to a man like this. Besides her mother, who was dreadfully ill with cancer, this elderly and utterly offensive man was her only living relative. And Sasha was starting to suspect that he was simply a nasty old man. He was nothing like the person she was hoping and praying her grandfather would be.
But what could she expect, she asked herself firmly? Sasha’s father had refused to acknowledge her in any way throughout her whole life. Good grief, he hadn’t even acknowledged Sasha’s mother. He’d had an affair with her mother and, at the first sign of pregnancy, had run off with another woman, eager to continue his playboy lifestyle.
For the rest of her life, Sasha had heard how horrible Greek men were, what a waste of oxygen because they didn’t have any humanity. They were “horrible, disgusting blokes” her mother would repeatedly say. On numerous occasions, Sasha’s mother had urged Sasha to avoid Greek men because they would give her nothing but pain.
And for years, Sasha had ignored her mother’s warnings. Surely an entire culture of men couldn’t be that bad, she’d reasoned. Her mother was a kind and generous woman, except when it came to Sasha’s father. So Sasha had simply dismissed her tirades and changed the subject.
Her heart aching, she looked at the man’s knobby knees, refusing to acknowledge him in any other way. “I understand. Since you feel this way, perhaps it would be better if you simply left.” She took a deep breath and stood up. “My father was too much of a coward to ever acknowledge me and that has been perfectly fine. Absolutely no loss there,” she told him with a defiant look to her eyes. “And apparently there has been no loss in never knowing you.”
The man was silent for a long moment before he said, “You’ve got good bones, girl.”
Sasha was startled. Good bones? What in the world did that mean? She stepped back, prepared to usher him out of the small house she shared with her mother. There had been many happy memories in this house and there was no need to endure this man’s hurtful comments. She opened her mouth to request him to leave once again but he interrupted her.
“No bosom, though. What the hell happened there? I thought your mother was well endowed.” He grunted as Sasha covered her chest with her hands defensively. “Never mind. It isn’t important anyway. He won’t like the deal, but he’ll bend to my will.”
Sasha was stunned once more. “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She took in a deep breath. “I am going to assume that you have no intention of helping me with my mother’s medical bills. Is that correct?”
The man sat back, his eyes taking her in, a slightly grudging approval of her defiance. “You got gumption.”
Sasha glared back at the man. She opened her mouth to say something but he interrupted her. “I don’t like gumption,” he told her. “You’ll have to get rid of that stare because he won’t like it. He’ll want a good, Greek girl. And that’s exactly what you’re going to present to him. A gumptionless, opinionless virgin.”
Sasha was so horrified and offended that she couldn’t hold back the gasp. “Excuse me?”
“As well you should!” he snapped. “If you’d been a boy, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. You would have taken your rightful place as my heir.” He looked her up and down. “So now that you’re a girl, the only use I have for you is as a wife. And if you want any help with your mother, you’ll turn yourself into the good Greek girl that I need. Otherwise, your mother can rot in that hospital bed for all I care.”
6 Years Later
Thirty minutes, Sasha thought. Just thirty more minutes and she’d be free. “Thank you, Danizia,” she said to the maid who had finished pinning up her hair. Spinning around on the dressing table chair, she smoothed her hair and bucked up her courage. This was her big goodbye! Sasha knew that she looked perfect for the part; cool, calm, sophisticated and unemotional. “That’s all I need tonight. You should head home and be with Enizio. He’s teething, isn’t he?”
Danizia smiled at the mention of her ten-month-old son. “And crying up a storm!” she added as she cleared off the tools from Sasha’s dressing table and straightened the bed one more time. She was eager for her mistress’ visit with her husband to go well tonight. “If you are sure you don’t need anything else…?”
Sasha placed a gentle hand on the maid’s shoulder. “No. Thank you. You’ve been wonderful and my hair is lovely.” The kind maid had twirled Sasha’s black tresses up into a sophisticated twist, adding curls and swirls to soften the effect but keeping it very stylish. Exactly what Sasha wanted for the night ahead of her.
Danizia smiled and basically curtsied as she left the room. No matter how many times she’d asked, the staff still wouldn’t stop curtsying around her. It wasn’t even as if her husband, Damon Galanos, was royalty. He was just embarrassingly wealthy.
She patted her hair one more time, looking at her reflection in the mirror. Hopefully, she didn’t look too much like the silly, naïve eighteen year old who had agreed to marry a stranger six years ago. After tonight, she would be free. Free of the oppressive marriage, free of the anger she felt every time she opened a newspaper and saw yet another woman on her husband’s arm and free of everything here in this small village while her husband traipsed around the world. She was going back to England, filing for divorce and starting over. She would get a job, find a sweet, kind, warm-hearted husband who loved her, one who knew what it meant to be married. She would get pregnant, have a family and she would never, ever wonder where the man in her life might be. She would find a man who was eager to be with her, who didn’t leave her home alone, wondering what she could do to bring him to her side.
She was done with that. She’d done it for eighteen years trying to meet her father. Then she’d done it for six months, trying to meet her grandfather. And the result of that search had been the living nightmare she had suffered in order to abolish all of the monster issues in her life. For no imaginary monster could live up to the ogre that was her grandfather.
Best of all, after tonight, she would never wait for her extremely handsome husband, trying to figure out how to be the woman he wanted, a woman who could interest a man like Damon Galanos. She would never second-guess herself, or try to become someone she wasn’t. Her grandfather had demanded that she become a good Greek wife so that his blackmail against Damon Galanos would be successful. That meant someone submissive and eager to please, always in the home and never venturing out.
She had done all of that and more, but to no avail. Sasha and Damon’s union had remained loveless, barren of companionship, and even chaste.
She’d fallen in love with Damon Galanos at first sight, but years of trying to become the perfect wife – to be the sweet, submissive wife – had failed to bring him home more than three times a year. Christmas, her birthday and Easter were the only times she saw her husband. And on those occasions, he generally had business people with him so she didn’t even have him to herself. Some of her birthdays he’d even missed, although the expensive trinkets were mostly delivered on time with apologies for his absence. And then there were the painful times when he missed her birthday or sent a birthday present on the wrong day. Even the wrong month. That alone had taught her that her husband had no intention of becoming a real partner with her.
This submissive, boring and tedious person wasn’t her. She’d never in her life been submissive until her grandfather had made that horrible deal. The deal that had ended in her imprisonment here in this house while her husband…
She’d lived here for six long years. This village was beautiful, the house more than amazing. Every luxury she might imagine was installed in this house. The villagers were more like her family and she loved them all dearly. But after tonight, she would spread her wings and fly away. Fly away from Damon Galanos forever. He would never hurt her again, she promised to her reflection. This was the end. She was done.
She heard the cars driving down the gravel drive and took a deep breath. Everything tonight had been planned out perfectly. Dinner was in the oven, the wine was “breathing” on the kitchen table and even dessert seemed somewhat celebratory. The staff had been given the night off, with very specific instructions not to return until tomorrow.
She even had her bags packed, anticipating that tonight would be the end of this farce of a marriage.
It wasn’t as if he would care, she thought. In fact, because it wasn’t one of the three normal times of the year when he visited, she suspected that Damon was going to suggest termination of their marriage as well. It would make sense. He’d never thought of her as his wife. She was simply a woman he’d married and who occupied this house. He barely even acknowledged her except to inquire about her days when he showed up, introduce her to his friends and then move into his own area of the villa. She had no idea why he was coming here tonight, but it was her night to get out of this golden cage and start to live!
Damon walked into the villa, dismissing his string of bodyguards. He had absolutely no idea why he was here. All he knew was that the last time he’d seen his little wife, she’d stuck in his mind and hadn’t left it. The skinny girl he’d married had blossomed and his wife’s lush, womanly figure had stayed in his mind. As had her dancing brown eyes and her bright, eager smile.
What was it about her that had dug into his subconscious so thoroughly? He’d been having disturbingly erotic dreams lately where all that dark, lovely hair was splayed out on the pillow underneath him while his hands and mouth explored her unexpected womanly curves. Never had he dreamed about the women in his life before the last time he’d been here. Women were mere toys, he’d always thought. His father had married too many of them, which was one of the prime reasons he had found himself married at the too-young age of twenty eight.
When he’d heard that his father had lost the villa and the waterfront properties to his last wife, and that they were in the hands of Demarkus Monetti, his anger had been almost palpable.
“Marry my granddaughter, and the villa is yours,” the vile man had threatened. Damon had been livid at the terms, but there had been no alternative but to give in to the man’s blackmail. The possibility of losing the villa, the home that had been in his family for centuries and was the symbol of power for the Galanos family empire, was unacceptable. It was a source of pride and losing it would allow his competitors to think he was weak. If there was one thing he would not allow, it was for anyone to think he was weak.
So why was he here now? Why had the lush curves of a woman gotten through to him? How had he not pushed her into the furthest recesses of his mind, as he’d done for the past six years, as he’d done with all of his mistresses when he needed to focus on business issues? No woman had ever broken through his merciless focus when it came to business.
Until now.
It wasn’t weakness, he told himself. His father had been weak about women. His mother had been weak about drinking, gambling, and having affairs with any man that propositioned her.
No, Damon accepted that it was simply time to settle down and start raising a family. And since he already had a wife, it was natural for him to turn to her, to come back to this villa where she’d been happily ensconced for six years. He would get her pregnant, wait for the baby to be born, then continue on his way. He had plans for his business. He’d already crushed the Monetti empire, reducing it to rubble. His wife’s grandfather had blackmailed Damon Galanos, and no one survived that kind of challenge to his power.
On the day that he’d accomplished that goal, he’d considered divorcing his wife. But in the end, it just hadn’t been worth his time and effort. Besides, she’d been a sweet, biddable little thing, completely innocent of her grandfather’s machinations. So he hadn’t bothered. Now he was glad that he hadn’t. He had a woman, willing and eager if her past actions were any indication, to be the perfect wife.
So where the hell was she? He glanced around, startled that she wasn’t running into his arms as she had so often in the past. Whenever he’d shown up, she’d always been excited to see him, to tell him whatever she’d learned, to share a meal with him and regale him with funny escapades of the various villagers’ lives.
The villa seemed strangely quiet. He looked around again, realizing that not even the servants were here.
What the hell?
“Sasha!” he called out, irritated by her absence. He’d grown used to her enthusiasm. And now that he was here, ready to start their marriage, she was gone? Impossible! His guards hadn’t told him that she’d left the villa. He would have known.
“I’m here,” Sasha called out, walking gracefully down the curving staircase.
Sasha stopped on the bottom stair, looking towards the man who was both her husband and a stranger. For six years, she’d been completely infatuated with this man. And she had to admit, he was quite the physical prize. Several inches over six feet of pure, raw masculinity. He was overpoweringly male, from his black hair and those strange, golden eyes to all of the muscles cleverly hidden by the expensive tailored suit. She didn’t mind admitting that the man literally took her breath away.
If only…
No, she stopped that thought quickly. Too many days and nights she’d spent trying to think of some way to get him to view her as a woman. Too many nights, she’d slept in the master bedroom, alone. And too many mornings, she’d flipped through the newspapers, finding her husband’s picture with another woman on his arm. She’d endured too much pain and humiliation because of this man’s arrogant negligence. No more. This was done!
“How was your flight?” she asked, forcing her feet to move again. She stopped several steps away from him and clasped her hands in front of her, waiting. For one more night, she would be patient, she told herself. And for one more night, she would feast her eyes on the one man who could make her literally weak in the knees. Never before her ridiculous farce of a wedding, and certainly not in the past six years, had she ever met a man as dynamically, amazingly gorgeous or one that affected every one of her senses like Damon Galanos could with a simple glance of those golden eyes.
“My flight?” he repeated, wondering why she wasn’t running into his arms. What had happened to her enthusiastic greetings?
And why the hell was he having trouble controlling his body’s response to his wife? She was wearing a black dress that covered her from her neck right down to her very sexy knees. Her arms were bare, but that was about all the skin he could see. So why was his body hardening to a throbbing ache while she simply stood there, watching him as if he were a guest in his own house?
“Yes. I assume you flew here, correct?” she asked, carefully trying to hide her sarcasm behind a pleasant façade.
Damon was getting angry now. She looked lovely and sophisticated and he wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her. That was his right, he told himself. So why was she standing there, almost mocking him?! “Yes. The flight was good. Thank you for asking.”
She smiled slightly and his eyes narrowed.
She picked up on his anger but didn’t understand it. What did he expect? He’d ignored her for six years! He wasn’t going to get the child he married. He was getting the woman she’d become. The woman he’d created through his callous treatment of her over the years. “Would you like a drink?” she asked with as calm a tone as possible.
Damon yanked at his tie. He’d like to lift her up and take her to bed, he thought. “Yes. A drink would be good, thank you.” He waited for her to rush over to the living room and pour him a drink. But she just stood there. Waiting.
He tossed his tie over a chair, slipping his suit jacket off as well. “Where is everyone?” he asked, walking into the living room himself. He lifted the decanter with amber liquid and poured it into one of the crystal glasses.
“I gave the servants the night off.”
His hand froze halfway to his mouth while his eyes snapped back to her. “Why in the world would you do that?” he demanded.
Sasha walked over to the bar as well, poured herself some of the same liquid. She took a sip before answering. “Because there was no need for them to be here. Chloe made dinner and it is warming in the oven. Danizia went home to her son and is probably pacing back and forth, wishing she were here instead since her son is teething. I sent Marco home because I knew that I wasn’t going anywhere tonight so I wouldn’t need a chauffeur. The gardeners all leave at five o’clock; the additional maids you seem to think are an absolute necessity went home around three o’clock because they are bored out of their mind.” She lifted her glass in the air. “But they all appreciate your patronage, Damon.” And she took a delicate sip of her drink before moving to sit down on one of the white, brocade chairs.