Wedding Night with a Stranger Read Free Page B

right. You can’t do this. This is against the law. ’ Her uncle hung up on her and she tried furiously to redial.
    ‘Miss, please…’ The attendant held out his hand for the phone, insistence in his tone. Her neighbours were staring with avid interest. All heads were turned her way.
    ‘But this is an emergency,’ she said. Glancing around, she realised the plane was already taxiing. She panicked. ‘Oh, no, no. I have to get off.’
    She dropped the phone, unbuckled her seat belt and tried to rise. Someone across the aisle dived for her phone.
    The urgent voices. ‘Miss, sit down. Miss. Sit, please. You are endangering the passengers.’
    People around her stared as she half stood, clinging to the seat in front of her, craning their necks to see the distressed woman. Then the plane accelerated for lift-off, and she plumped down involuntarily. She felt the wheels leave the ground, the air under the wings, and was flooded with despair. They would have to turn back. The pilot would have to be told.
    When the white rooftops of Athens were falling away below two more attendants had arrived, concerned and more authoritative. ‘Is anything wrong, Miss Giorgias? Are you ill?’
    ‘It’s my—my uncle. He…’ Already they were out over the sea and heading up through clouds. ‘We have to go back. There’s been a mistake. Can you please tell the pilot?’
    She took in their bemused expressions, the quick exchange of glances, and lurid images of the headlines flashed through her head. Ariadne Giorgias provokes airbus incident. Ariadne of Naxos in more trouble.
    More scandal, more shame. More mockery of her name, using the coincidence of the ancient myth. She cringed from the thought of any further notoriety.
    In the end she fastened her seat belt and apologised.
    But she couldn’t just acquiesce. She might be stranded in ahotel room, in a strange city on the other side of the world with no one to turn to except a man who despised her, but she mustn’t give into panic. She had to keep her wits about her and find a solution.
    First, though, she needed to be practical. She had expected many of her meals and all of her accommodation to have been paid in advance for the coming weeks, and her bank account was virtually empty except for the holiday money. Money for a little shopping, taxis, tips, day trips here and there. Holiday money. What a cruel laugh that was.
    She took a deep, bracing breath and dialled Thea Leni’s private line at the Athens town house. This time she mustn’t lose control, as she had with the call from the plane.
    ‘Eleni Giorgias?’
    Her aunt’s voice brought Ariadne a rush of emotion, but she controlled it. Thea sounded wary. Expecting the call, Ariadne guessed.
    ‘Thea. It’s me.’
    ‘Oh, toula, don’t…Don’t…Your uncle has arranged everything and it will be good. You will see. Are you…all right?’
    Ariadne’s heart panged at the note of concern but she made herself ignore it. This wasn’t the time for tears. ‘There’s been a mistake in the hotel booking,’ she said in a low, rapid voice. ‘I find that I’m only booked for one night, and it hasn’t been paid for. The travel agent must have made an error. And when I met the tour director in the lobby my name wasn’t on his list. I thought Thio had paid in advance. And he was supposed to have paid the hotel for four weeks.’
    There was a shocked silence. Then her aunt said, ‘Not paid for? But—but how…?’ Then her voice brightened. ‘Oh, I know what he’s thinking. Consider, toula, you won’t need to be in that hotel for long.’
    The ruthlessness of the trick stabbed at Ariadne. Whatever had happened to chastity before marriage? ‘Oh, Thea, what areyou asking me to do ?’This time there was no controlling her wail of anguish. ‘Are you expecting me to go straight into that man’s bed?’
    Guilt, or perhaps shame, made her aunt’s voice shrill. ‘I’m not asking you to do anything except to give Sebastian a