The Greek's Marriage Bargain ✔️ (Completed)

Five

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*****

The faint drone of the aircraft engine was the only sound he could hear and several times Dimitris found himself lifting his head from his pile of paperwork, to see if Natalia had fallen asleep. She hadn't. She was sitting staring at an open magazine on her lap, though he noticed she hadn't turned a page.

    She still looked pale, he thought. Against her flowery dress her skin seemed almost transparent, giving her a delicate appearance which made her seem almost breakable. But she wasn't breakable, he reminded himself. Behind her delicate appearance, she was tough. The toughest woman he'd ever known.

    He looked down at the document but the words were just a blur of black and white. He leaned his head back against the seat. Last night they'd talked more frankly about the baby than they'd ever done before -- but he had been left with no answers. Maybe there was no answers. Maybe he just had to learn to accept that it was what it was. A marriage against which the odds had been stacked from the beginning, followed by circumstances which had conspired to prove it was never going to work.
    Yet that wasn't helping him deal with the current situation, was it? It didn't stop him wanting her so badly that it was all he could do not to reach out and touch her. She'd made it clear that sex wasn't on her agenda but he wondered how long her resolve would last once they were back to sharing a bedroom.

    The engine noise changed and he glanced out to the cabin window. "Look, we're coming in to land," he said.

    Natalia followed the directions of his gaze and saw the island of Rhodes dazzling like a bright jewel in the dark blue waters of the Aegean. She thought how long it had been since she'd been abroad and done anything as decadent as just lie in the sun. "When were you last here?"

    "I came over a couple of months ago for a few days. Work has been... demanding."

    "So what else is new?" she demanded wryly. "You haven't stopped since we boarded the plane."

    His green eyes gleamed. "There's a reason for that. I've been trying to clear my diary so that I won't need to work while we're here."
    Natalia felt her lips part in surprise. "Good heavens," she said faintly. "Next thing you'll be telling me that you're planning to switch off your phoje at night."

    "If that's a veiled offer to share my bed, then consider it done."

    "It wasn't."

    He smiled. "Didn't think so."

    He picked up the documents and put them in his briefcase, vowing not to go near them for the duration of their stay. But it was hard to break the habit of a lifetime -- a way of livinv and working which had become second nature to him.

    He'd been barely eighteen when his father had dropped dead and Dimitris discovery that the business was in a parlour state hadn't helped the family come to terms with their shock and grief. Suddenly, the world as he had known it was one he no longer recognized.
    But he had turned everything around. He had thrown himself in at the deep end and worked every hour to learn about the business, from the bottom up. He had sweated blood to earn the respect of the disillusioned Valerianos workforce. And while most people would have been content simply to get the giant organization back on its feet, Dimitris was not most people. He didn't want to be known as a man who had saved something, he wanted to be known as a man who had made something. That was why he had bought the newspaper.

    The film had been something different. The film had touched something deep inside him. It had connected with his essential Greekness. He had backed it because he had loved it; tye money and awards he had earned as a result had not been what had driven him. And Natalia had understood. She loved that film, too.