LYNNE GRAHAM: The Heiress Bride

But a split second later, she could only watch with a dropped jaw as her father dealt Alexio a considering look of ironic approval. ‘You’re a man not unlike me. Possessive, protective of what’s yours. Well, then, you keep your mouth shut from now on!’

Ione just closed her eyes, still sick from the threat of the violence that had so nearly exploded upon them all and equally sick with humiliation. The men resumed their seats. Alexio skimmed a probing glance at Ione and asked himself if he had been guilty of a crazy overreaction, for she did not seem grateful for his intervention. He had believed that her father had been about to hit her, but it was more probable that the older man had only been waving an angry fist in the air. After all, Ione had just sat there and would surely not have done so had she feared a blow. What grounds did he have to suspect Minos of abusive behaviour? And much might be forgiven of a man fighting terminal illness and looking death in the face, Alexio reminded himself with all the discomfiture of a young and healthy male.

‘I feel unwell. Please excuse me,’ Ione muttered chokily.

‘Yes, go,’ her father growled in a tone of disgust. ‘You have already done your utmost to spoil our meal!’

Ione rose on knees that felt like jelly and left the room. Her head was pounding fit to burst and all courage was failing her. Alexio would agree to them living at the villa after their wedding. Why shouldn’t he? Such an arrangement would be very convenient for him. After all, it would give him complete freedom and he wouldn’t need to feel guilty about leaving her for long periods with her own family. Would there even be a honeymoon trip now? Alexio hadn’t wanted to go to Paris in the first place and her father would soon persuade him that a honeymoon was a waste of business time and energy. Tears running down her convulsed face, Ione stumbled into her bathroom and stared at herself in the vanity mirror.

What an idiot she had been to believe that she could escape her father’s control of every aspect of her life! He had been way ahead of her in the planning stakes and she had been stupid not to foresee that likelihood.

Ever since that letter from her twin sister had arrived within months of her eighteenth birthday, Ione’s mail had been vetted and scrutinised. Her sibling, Misty, had wanted contact with her and Ione’s father had been furious that the social services had unsealed the adoption records to aid such an approach to his adopted daughter without his consent. Ione had not been allowed to answer that letter and she only knew that her sister was or had been a Sicilian tycoon’s mistress because that had evidently featured in a more recent newspaper story that had come to her father’s notice. She had not seen that article herself. Her father had simply informed her that the sister she longed to be reunited with was a whore.

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