Chapter 25


    She’d spent years breaking free and now, just as her life and freedom were hers and hers alone, she


    found she was pledging herself to a man with the same controlling instinct she had spent so long


    kicking back from.


    Christian had over-protectiveness down to an art.


    He hadn’t merely employed a bodyguard for her, he’d employed an elite squad of hardened ex-soldiers.


    Unfortunately they didn’te with personalities, all having been highly trained never to crack a smile


    or share banter. In the safety of her apartment building she could forget all about them, but the second


    she stepped outside they would materialise.


    As much as she found their presence stifling, she was grateful. She’d never imagined the paparazzi


    could be any worse than when she’d been seventeen. She’d been wrong. Eight years ago it had been


    mostly the Italian press with a handful of Brits thrown in. This time their number included Greeks—lots


    of them—Americans, French... She swore she’d even heard a Japanese voice throw questions at her.


    She’d known her engagement to Christian would generate a frenzy but had not been prepared for such


    madness.


    The granddaughter of the great Giovanni Mondelli, a man of such stature he was regarded like royalty;


    the sister of Ro Mondelli, the man credited with dragging the House of Mondelli kicking and


    screaming into the twenty-first century, a man who’d recently married one of the most famous


    supermodels in the world; Alessandra Mondelli, the former scandal-hit teenager who’d be one of


    the world’s leading fashion photographers: for such a woman to be marrying the self-made Greek


    billionaire, the whizz of the financial world with the movie-star looks... For the press it was a dream


    combination.


    For Alessandra it was a nightmare. She consoled herself that at least she wasn’t being called a slut any


    more. She’d kept her dark sunsses on and answered only one of the hundreds of questions that had


    been thrown her way over the past week.


    ‘Are you looking forward to the wedding?’ someone had asked.


    ‘Of course,’ she’d replied with what she hoped was an enigmatic smile.


    She hadn’t been the only target. Christian, his sunsses permanently attached to his face too, had


    also been mobbed. As had Ro, who ignored every single question. Rumours had started circting


    in the past few days about the punch, a new frenzy ensuing.


    Relieved to be away from the madness, she leaned back in the leather seat and gazed out at Athens,


    the city that would y a huge part of her life from this moment on.


    She’d heard it referred to as ‘the cradle of Western civilisation.’ Even if she’d been unaware of its


    history, she would have recognised it. It had seeped into the walls, some pristine, some falling apart at


    the seams. With ugly apartment blocks and majestic buildings, it was a city that managed to be


    cosmopolitan yet obviously ancient and historic. A city of contradictions.


    For the first time she felt something akin to excitement bubble in her veins.


    She had six days in this city before she exchanged her vows. From worrying that she would be bored


    stuck in a ce where she knew no one, she now saw a huge opportunity. If she could ever get


    anywhere. At this rate, she would be lucky to make it to the hotel before the sun set. She’d thought the


    traffic in Mn was bad...


    Eventually, they came to a road with manned security gates that opened slowly and led to an enormous


    white building with pirs either side of the huge entrance. It was as though she was staring at a pce


    that had been home to the Greek gods themselves.


    A fleet of staff was by her side within seconds of the caring to a stop, her luggage whisked away


    while she was taken through to the marble foyer.


    ‘Don’t I need to sign in?’ she asked when a woman, who identified herself as the general manager,


    offered to take her straight to her room.


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    ‘No, despinis,’ the woman replied. ‘Everything is taken care of.’


    Christian’s work, Alessandra told herself, her belly tightening at the thought of seeing him again. She’d


    been so busy over the past week that she’d hardly had the time to think of him on anything other than a


    practical level. Her dreams, though, had been...disturbing. Enough that merely to think of him made her


    bones feel as if they’d been through a blender.