“Yes.” The woman put final touches on her lips. “Now you are.”
“Thank you.” She looked around for her bag. “I’ll get my wallet—”
“We’ve already been paid by your husband,” the stylist said, smiling at her. “And lavishly tipped, I might add.”
“Congratulations, Mrs. Minos,” the other stylist said warmly. “I hope you will be very happy.”
Mrs. Minos. Just the name caused a flutter inside Holly’s belly. As the stylists gathered their equipment and disappeared, she looked at herself. She hardly recognized the glamorous bride in the mirror, with her glamorous makeup and unruly red hair tamed into an elegant chignon beneath a veil.
She was wearing expensive lingerie, a strapless bustier and white panties, and a white garter holding up old-fashioned white stockings. The long, translucent veil stretched behind her. For a moment, she was lost in a dream, picturing a lifetime as Stavros’s wife, the two of them in love forever—
In love? Where had that idea come from?
“It’s easy for you to be happy,” Nicole said resentfully. “With all your money.” Lifting Freddie, who was whining in a similar tone, from his nearby crib, she said to the baby, “You’re the luckiest kid in the world.”
Lifting her simple white wedding dress from where it was spread over the bedspread of the guest bed, Holly said distractedly, “You don’t believe that, Nicole. You know it’s not money that makes a happy home, but love. And your money problems will work themselves out. You have a college degree. You could always look for a job yourself...”
“It’s not just money.” Cuddling her nephew close, Nicole closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. “Oliver’s cheating on me, Holly.”
Holly stiffened as she held her simple strapless white dress over her undergarments. “Oh, no!”
“He only married me because I threatened to break up with him if he didn’t. But that was when he had an easy job and plenty of money. Now, he regrets he ever married me. I’m not good enough.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Scowling, she whirled to face her little sister. “He’s the one who’s not remotely good enough—”
“He’s going to leave me for someone rich,” she choked out, wiping her eyes. “I just know it. And I’ll be all alone.”
When she saw Nicole’s woebegone face, Holly’s heart broke for her.
“It’ll be all right, Nicky,” she whispered, using her old childhood nickname as she reached out to touch her shoulder. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
“I’m so sorry.” Trying to smile, Nicole choked back her tears. “I’m wrecking your wedding day. We can talk about this all later.”
But as Holly left the guest bedroom a few minutes later, and went into the grand salon of the penthouse, she still felt troubled. And not just by what she’d learned from her sister, who was dressed in a pink bridesmaid’s dress, following her with yawning Freddie, resplendent in a baby tuxedo.
Holly’s teeth chattered nervously as she thought of the irrevocable vows she was about to take. Just this time last year, she’d been planning Nicole’s wedding. She’d never expected she’d so soon be a bride herself. Now, as she walked down the short hallway, she clutched her simple bouquet of pink peonies as if her life depended on it.
She was getting married.
To him.
Stavros stood waiting near the Christmas tree, imposing and breathtakingly handsome in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows with all of New York City at his feet. Next to him stood Oliver, blond and debonair. On his other side was the jocular, white-haired judge who would marry them, smiling broadly in his black robes, and lastly Eleni, in an old-fashioned, formal dress, beaming as if she herself were mother of the groom.
But Holly had eyes only for Stavros.
He was wearing a sleek tuxedo that clung to his powerful, muscular body. Her eyes moved up from his black tie to his powerful neck, his square jaw, his gorgeous face. His dark eyes burned through her.
Their wedding ceremony was simple, lasting only a few minutes. It seemed like a dream.
She couldn’t look away from his face.
“And do you, Holly Ann Marlowe, take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband...?”
“I do,” she breathed, trembling as he slid the huge diamond ring over her finger.
“And do you, Stavros Minos, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?”
“I do,” he growled in his low, sexy voice, looking at her in a way that made her toes curl in her high-heeled shoes. And suddenly, all her nervousness about the permanency of their wedding vows melted away.