The Counterfeit Bride Read online

  Time was her enemy.

  Cassidy never regretted leaving home at fifteen, and looking at her cousin Julia Jenkins pretending to be Cassiopeia she was even ecstatic she had escaped when she had. The thought of living with the Jenkins made her skin crawl and nausea boil in her tummy.

  A gentle touch on her arm brought Cassidy back to the present and Athens. She turned her attention back to the priest with the nice brown eyes. He wasn’t the enemy. It looked like he was another dupe of the Jenkins and Dolmides.

  “Why do you wish to interrupt this ceremony, my child?” he asked in a gentle voice “What is your objection?”

  “I have no wish to be married, especially not to a man of someone else’s choosing.” She could feel her voice losing some of the warm Texas drawl. The voice she used to calm men down. Instead she heard the hard bitten Yankee edge she had when dealing with an obnoxious drunk or all around creep. Every time she dropped an ‘r’ she mentally cringed. She hated hearing Aunt Patsy’s voice coming out of her own mouth. She shivered in revulsion. “I’m a free woman with a mind of my own. I choose my own way of life and my own men.”

  “Then why the hell are you here? Do you think I will pay you to leave? If so, you have sadly miscalculated. I do not pay off tramps,” Costas Dolmides shouted.

  “No, sir, you just pay to get rid of their unwanted children. The children neither one of you think about nor care anything about again. At least not until you need them to do something for you. You should be ashamed of yourself throwing babies away!” Tears gathered in her eyes, but she would not let a creep like Costas Dolmides make her cry. She counted it as her biggest failing that whenever she got mad the tears flowed.

  Kelley Flynn stepped away from Julia’s elbow, tottered in her very high heels, pulled back her arm, and hit Cassidy solidly across the face. “How dare you malign the character of a fine man like Costa. We’ve explained everything to dear Cassiopeia. She understands why we had to do the things we did in order to protect her. She’s forgiven us.”

  Cassidy raised an arm in the age old signal to halt, which effectively stopped the two black leather clad behemoths that had rushed up the aisle to protect her. “It’s all right, boys.” She paused briefly. “Thank you for the fine welcome you have given me, Mom. Unfortunately for you and your lover, you are both being conned. You never explained anything to Cassiopeia, and she sure as shootin’ hasn’t forgiven the two of you for a single day of misery she had to suffer at Aunt Patsy and Uncle Joe’s hands. Tell me something, please. Does it feel weird to not know your own daughter? That an imposter has stepped in to pretend to be your daughter? Or are you in on it?”

  Kelley’s face flushed an angry red. Cassidy mentally snickered at the unattractive color that clashed so badly with her hair. Kelley looked like she was going to respond, but a glance from Costas kept her mouth shut. Gee, Mom, you didn’t even have to ask how high.

  Cassidy turned her own face to Theron, the blazing hand print burning her cheek from chin to eye. “I am sorry if you have feelings for your bride, but you must know the truth before you are wed.” Cassidy stopped talking to clear her throat. This wasn’t as easy as she had hoped it would be. “There is a school of thought, in the brilliant legal minds I conferred with, about the legality of such a marriage as well as to whom you would actually be married. You see, that,” she pointed a finger at her cousin, “is not Cassiopeia Dolmides. That is Julia Jenkins, daughter of Patsy Jenkins.”

  Patsy rushed into the fray in a froth of mauve chiffon that looked hideous with her red nose. Her hands clawed at Cassidy’s arm. “Julia! Julia, what are you doing? Why are you ruining your dear cousin’s wedding like this?” Patsy turned her mottled face to Costas. “I am so sorry. This is my daughter Julia. She is a deeply disturbed young woman. She has always been jealous of dear Cassiopeia and the generous way you have always provided for her.”

  “Aunt Patsy, you are delusional. There is only one fate that is worse than being the child of those two monsters,” Cassidy’s hand swept towards Kelley and Costas, “and that would be having you and Uncle Joe for parents.”

  A collective gasp rang around the distinguished church.

  Cassidy threw back her head and laughed. It was either that or scream.

  Her laugh was coated in honey, but Theron felt the steel core. Was this beautiful woman as disturbed as Patsy Jenkins claimed? He took a careful look at her. He could not believe such perfection had come from a harridan like Patsy nor her fool of a husband. The girl looked like Kelley- the height and the hair color was different, but all the features were the same. Could the similarity in their looks have fostered the girl’s delusion?

  “Good try, Aunt Patsy, but I can prove I am Cassiopeia Flynn. Get that? Flynn, not Dolmides. I guess y’all did some finagling to get the last name changed in time for this big, fancy wedding.” The little woman looked him straight in the eye. “I’m sorry, but until I can be assured that this marriage will not impede my freedom, or my life in any way, I will not allow it to go forward. At least not as long as the bride is using my name. If you want to marry Julia Jenkins, then the wedding can proceed as soon as you can get the proper documents.”

  The marriage of Cassiopeia Domides to Theron was to ensure the merger of Dolmides Global with Christofides International. This was Theron’s one chance to save the island of his birth. The only terms Costas would agree to included a marriage between Theron and one of Costas’ daughters. The only daughter not already married was the crumpled woman crying on the outside of the circle the Dolmides family had formed in the center aisle. His bride looked ready to collapse and had not uttered one word in rebuttal.

  It did not make sense for Costas to perform this enormous hoax. He had nothing to gain by foisting the wrong woman on him.

  Kelley Flynn looked shell shocked, her usual poise and beauty crumbling as quickly as the bride’s make up. Patsy and her husband Joe looked wary. Did they have something more than a disturbed child to hide?

  Why was he not turned-on looking at his bride but the deranged firecracker had put him into an instant stare of arousal?

  “Padre,” Cassidy began.

  “You are in Greece, not Spain. Do not refer to our man of God as Padre again,” Costas erupted.

  The pyrotechnia mikros ignored Costas once again. “I am sorry, sir. Where I come from calling a priest Padre is a sign of respect.”

  The priest picked up one of her small hands in his, her purple nails drawing attention to the action. “It is perfectly all right, my child. Your show of respect speaks well of you. Why do you say the bride is not the real Cassiopeia Dolmides, the real daughter of Costa and Kelley?”

  The woman took a deep breath. As she filled her lungs Theron tried to keep his eyes on her face. Even so he could see her chest expand; the fullness of her breasts and a hint of black lace peeped over the low neck of her tight top. He had never felt anything like the physical pull she had on his libido. Too bad the woman’s family claimed she was crazy.

  Perhaps giving up his mistress a few weeks before the wedding had not been wise. Surely if he still had Chloe in his bed his reaction to this little ball of fire would not be so intense. Chloe had been a good mistress and willing to remain in his life, but no, he had to be honorable and give the American fruitcake a chance at a happy marriage by giving her fidelity.

  “My name is Cassiopeia Amethyst Flynn.” She fluttered her violet eyes at him. “At a guess I would think the name Amethyst was because of my purple eyes. Julia’s are pale grey.”

  “My bride’s eyes are also purple.” Theron said. This gorgeous woman had to be an imposter. If old man Dolmides had tried to foist a false bride on him, it meant Dolmides had made a fool of him. His pride told him to go, leave the church right now, and never look back, but the fire haired woman held him captive. Not to mention the merger he needed to complete.

  “The violet eyes came to me through my maternal grandmother. Patsy was her niece by marriage. The eyes are not in her genes,�
� the little flirt batted her eyes at him.

  “It’s obvious that woman is wearing contacts,” Patsy Jenkins shriek interrupted Theron’s bewitched stare into the purple depths.

  “That’s true. I could be wearing contacts, but I don’t have to because I have perfect eyesight. However, friends of mine that do wear contacts have told me that they can only wear them for so long before they start to irritate. You know one guy told me that the lens got stuck on his, oh dear, what was it? Was it his cornea or his retina? I can never remember technical stuff like that. I tend to be a bit of a bird brain at times. Anyway, they had to perform emergency surgery to get it out. You could have Jules and I sit in a brightly lit room somewhere and wait it out. No bathroom breaks, no walking around alone, nothing.”

  The bride in her white gown whimpered. Was she afraid someone would put her to the test?

  “You mean you have no legal proof, other than purple eyes to support your claim?” Theron snapped. He wanted to touch this woman, but not at the cost of losing the deal. The deal was the most important thing in his life. Women come and go, but this merger was crucial.

  “On the contrary, I have oodles and oodles of proof,” the little firecracker answered.

  “Where is it?” Theron volleyed back.

  “The originals are with my attorney. The copies are right here.” She snapped her fingers and one of the monoliths moved forward, withdrew papers from an inside pocket of his leather vest, and handed them to her. “Thanks, Moose.” She certainly had the imperiousness of a Dolmides.

  Theron looked at an old passport, dated ten years previously. It was an original in the name of Cassiopeia. She had also handed him a copy of a birth certificate, baptismal record, and several other documents proclaiming the existence of Cassiopeia Flynn. “These all seem in order, Costa.”

  “Those are forgeries. We’ve already shown you the originals!” Patsy Jenkins screeched. The sound went straight to a point in Theron’s brain and settled right between his eyes. He hoped his bride wasn’t too attached to her aunt; he didn’t want the woman staying in his home for any extended visits.

  The young woman in front of him closed her eyes for a moment. “You still haven’t learned how to use your indoor voice, have you, Aunt Patsy?” she asked in a pained voice.

  The more the little intruder referred to Kelley’s obnoxious relative as “Aunt”, the closer he came to believing her. If she were telling the truth it would be a disaster.

  “Aunt Patsy, you may have provided documentation, but it is either a forgery or a duplicate. I took all the originals with me when I ran away ten years ago.” A smug look came over her gorgeous face. “There is still one more way of proving who I am, and it can neither be forged nor duplicated.”

  “What would that be?” Costas growled.

  “It’s running through my veins.” The firecracker folded her hands demurely in front of her and smiled the smile of a saint sighting heaven for the first time. “My DNA. Unless Kelley was messing around behind your back, it will prove I am your daughter.”

  Theron felt the pull of air being inhaled around him. The woman had made an impression on the entire congregation.

  “I’ve made arrangements to have the testing done at the U.S. Embassy. If you want the truth, be there at two this afternoon. There will be no wedding until this is settled.” She stood on her toes and kissed the priest on each cheek. “Adio, o papas. Goodbye, Father. Efharisto. Thank you.” Then she performed a perfect pivot and left the church through the sun flooded doors.

  “I’ll be happy to take this little minx off your hands.” Theron flinched. His best friend Ajax stood at his side and wanted the little beauty for himself. Jax already had a secret wife hidden away somewhere. He didn’t need any more complications in his life and Theron wasn’t going to let anyone else have the little firecracker. He looked his best friend in the eye and uttered a rude comment about Jax’s parentage. Jax laughed it off.

  “This could be your way out of the marriage,” Jax said in a lowered voice.

  “It could mean the end of Evadne Island,” Theron muttered back.

  Chapter 3

  Cassidy’s hat skimmed across her hotel room to land on a table in front of the windows. A toss worthy of John Wayne, the actor that cute old priest admired so much. She walked over to the bed and collapsed onto the side of it. Her energy level; zilch.

  “Cassidy, you look beat,” Lynda Davis, said from the doorway of the adjoining room. The woman had some frightening tattoos, but nothing could hide the love and loyalty in her soul. “How’d things go at the church? Did you stop the wedding?”

  Cassidy struggled into a sitting position and started yanking her boots off. As they unceremoniously hit the floor, her poor, aching feet celebrated their liberation. If her toes could sing, there’d be a hearty chorus of Hallelujah. The poor things hadn’t been freed since she had left her house and boarded the puddle jumper in Lubbock, Texas. Well, except for that humiliating search she had to go through at the international airport when the TSA people did everything but a cavity search on her.

  She never dreamed it would be forty-eight hours before she would see her Pretty Kitty socks again or that she had to wear her bar clothes into the beautiful old cathedral.

  Lynda and Moose had insisted on accompanying Cassidy to Greece. There was no way they would let “their girl” travel all that way alone, especially once they had seen how upset Cassidy had been. She would rather they had stayed home and cared for Zio while she was gone, but they had been overprotective towards her ever since Rico died six months earlier.

  After Rico’s funeral they gathered the remnants of their old motorcycle gang, to guard Cassidy and acted as doting grandparents to Zio. Cassidy knew there was no way they would allow her to walk into what they feared was a trap without suitable backup. That’s what family was all about. They took care of each other. They loved each other. They protected each other. They stuck together in times of adversity as well as the good ones. Cassidy had learned the hard way family wasn’t about blood; it was about love and trust. She had loved and trusted Rico and now she relied on friends like Lynda and Moose to help her protect baby Zio.

  “Oh, babe, you should have seen her. She was magnificent. She fluttered her pretty pansy eyes and told her tale. She only allowed the Yankee frost to slip into her sugar-will-melt-in-her-mouth voice a few times. She even snapped her fingers at me like she was one of those high falutin’ society babes.” Moose smiled from the suite’s living room door. “Cassidy, when we go to the embassy do you want me in my leathers or my lawyers’ duds?”

  Cassidy sighed. She didn’t want to go to the embassy. She didn’t want to be in Athens. She wanted to be home with her son. “We decided to present ourselves as professionals, not a bunch of rowdies from the Wild West.” She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I guess it’s too late to worry about that.”

  Moose swaggered into the room on legs, bowed, not from riding a horse all day, but his years riding a hog. “Well, little lady, that bull has already escaped the chute,” he said in his best cowboy imitation. No one would guess he was from Hoboken, New Jersey, never mind that he was a former motorcycle cop turned lawyer. “Maybe instead of a prim and proper appearance we should stick with the bush whacker look. The groom looked like he’d be more than happy to trade you for that mess of a cousin of yours. If you’d shown up looking like a virgin princess, in a white satin gown and tiara, he’d have scooped you up and we’d have to pry his cold dead hands off you.”

  Lynda laughed along with Moose and Ari, the other pseudo bodyguard. Ari’s parents were Greek, so his linguistic skills were invaluable on this trip, especially since Cassidy didn’t want to tip her hand and speak too much Greek. She wanted to know what her adversaries were saying without them knowing she understood them. She was in their territory and she needed every advantage she could get.

  “You’re not funny. The man looked at me as if I was a particularly smelly microbe of swamp water
.”

  “Cass, you are as innocent as a child when it comes to men. I’m afraid we’ve done you a grave disservice keeping all the scum away from you. Men are careful around you because there is always one of us nearby and we scare the crap out of ’em. You may be pint sized, but you have a body that makes men lick their lips, and think of all the things they want to do to you,” Lynda laughed. “Was it the eyes or the legs?” She asked her husband.

  “He certainly liked both of them, but he couldn’t stop looking at her chest and the amethysts dangling from her belly button,” Moose said.

  “I don’t know,” Ari said “I thought he was really enraptured with all the long red hair. But then when she turned to leave he couldn’t take his eyes off her ass. I heard him counting under his breath in Latin. I think he was trying to keep himself from running after her.”

  “You guys are full of it. You’re making it up.” Cassidy felt the heat in her face. It had to be as red as tomato soup and clashing with all the hated red hair.

  Lynda walked over and put her arm around Cassidy’s shoulders. “Cassie, honey, you gotta understand. Men always look at you like that. The men back home see your purity and innocence wrapped up in a body that’s illegal in at least five states and the District of Columbia. Add to that your feistiness and they just can’t help themselves.” She looked Cassidy straight in the eye. “They like to live, so they keep their hands off. They know one of us is always around you. We’d rip them apart if they tried anything. But there might come a time when we’re not with you. You have to become more aware on your effect on men.”