His Contract Christmas Bride

She walked over to the opposite side of the small room and stared out of the window at the river. The moon was beginning to rise and was forming a dappled silvery path on the darkening water and she could see that a cottage on the opposite bank must have put up their Christmas tree. She blinked as she stared at the glittering lights—rose and gold and green and blue—but felt none of the prescribed magic as she turned to meet Drakon’s hooded gaze. ‘Isn’t the normal thing in these kind of circumstances to employ a nanny?’ she questioned. ‘Which you already have done, by the sound of it. You can afford to engage a whole battery of staff, Drakon. Why do you need a wife?’

He shook his head, like a man who had all the answers—but hadn’t he always seemed like a man with all the answers? ‘Obviously the child will need a full-time nanny and Sofia is eager to continue in that role,’ he said, and paused. ‘But that isn’t the point, Lucy.’

‘Isn’t it?’ she asked quietly.

‘No.’

He shook his head and Lucy could see the bleakness in his eyes. She thought how empty his face looked. As if he’d been drained of all emotion so that he resembled some dark and forbidding statue. As if his body were composed of cold marble instead of flesh and blood, and a sudden trepidation whispered over her skin as she realised there was no real warmth in this man. ‘I don’t understand,’ she breathed.

‘Then let me make it clearer for you. I don’t want this child to grow up in that kind of world—the adopted child of a single billionaire,’ he bit out. ‘I don’t want him looked after by a series of employees with no emotional investment in his future, like I was. I don’t want him sent away to school like I was. Xander needs a family. A real family.’

Lucy swallowed, wondering which of them was being naïve now. Did anyone truly know what a real family was—or did they all just rely on the slushy default version you saw in films, or read about in books, with people clustered round a fire, throwing their heads back in mutual laughter? Yet having a family was the bedrock of society, wasn’t it? It was the dream which the majority of people aspired to, even if the reality was often so different. Was he really suggesting that the legal union of two people who had briefly been lovers could magically create some sort of fairy-tale household?

But then her mind began to focus on something else. On a single word the Greek tycoon had just uttered and which now lodged itself deep in her mind.

Xander.

Xander, his nephew and innocent little baby.

A motherless baby.

Lucy’s heart clenched with a pain she should have anticipated because unwittingly Drakon had stumbled across her Achilles heel. The reason why she always felt as if something inside her was missing and incomplete. The one part of her life which could never be fulfilled, unless...

Her mouth dried.

Unless she was brave enough—or crazy enough—to accept the billionaire’s bizarre offer. Because wasn’t he offering her the magic-wand solution she had once yearned for in the form of instant motherhood? Her mind began to race. Could it work? Could she provide what little Xander needed—and in so doing gain for herself what she thought had been lost for ever?

Take it slowly, she told herself firmly.

Slowly.

‘This sounds like a very long-term plan,’ she suggested carefully.

‘It is.’ Some of the coldness had left his face and in its place she could see conviction. And persuasion. ‘I’m talking endurance, Lucy. About putting a child’s needs first and making a promise to each other that neither of us intends to break. About commitment and stability.’

‘How can you be so sure you could find that with me?’ She stared at him. ‘When you don’t really know me. At school you were years ahead of me. I was just the school nurse’s daughter who was allowed to take certain classes with the boys. Apart from those times when you were having the wound on your leg attended to, you didn’t even notice me. We were just ships which passed in the night and, apart from that, we’ve only spent a few days together.’

‘You think that time we spent on Prasinisos didn’t provide me with the opportunity to discover something of what makes Lucy Phillips tick?’ he enquired softly.

Lucy wanted to turn away from the mocking look in his eyes but that would be an immature response to a perfectly reasonable question. Because they had been intimate—and it would be hypocritical to pretend they hadn’t.

‘I can’t deny we were lovers,’ she husked. ‘But physical intimacy during a mini-break on a Greek island is one thing. Real life is another. We’re strangers, Drakon. How do you know I wouldn’t drive you crackers before the first month was up?’

His eyes narrowed but Lucy couldn’t mistake the brief flash of surprise which had gleamed there. As if he couldn’t quite believe that she was prevaricating instead of instantly accepting his offer.

And wasn’t there a part of her which couldn’t quite believe it herself? Making out as if there were men lining up and asking her to marry them every day of the week!

‘We would have to work at it, in the way that people with arranged marriages have always done,’ he said. ‘And we will be walking into it with our eyes open—without any of the myths of love and romance which set people up for disappointment, and failure. If we refuse to have unrealistic expectations about each other, then we should succeed.’ He slanted her a smile. ‘Does that reassure you?’

Lucy thought how clever he was. And how controlling, too. That slow smile—she was certain—had been angled at her deliberately in order to pump up her heart rate and it had worked, hadn’t it? Was that the main reason he was here—because he thought of her as passive? Wasn’t it time to demonstrate that while she might be poor and unglamorous, that didn’t necessarily mean she was a complete pushover? ‘So what’s in it for me, Drakon?’ she questioned. ‘What made you think you could turn up without warning and ask me to become your wife? Were you so certain I’d say yes?’

Drakon’s eyes narrowed. He felt a certain responsibility towards her because he had unwittingly taken her virginity and had quashed his desire to see her again because he’d known he was capable of hurting her. He’d suspected that someone like her would be unable to cope with a commitment-phobe like him, even though he’d been sorely tempted to have sex with her again. But that had been back then—when his life had been free and unfettered. This was now, when he had an unexpected burden of responsibility to shoulder.

His mouth hardened. ‘I had an idea you might be tempted.’

‘Because?’

Would it be cruel to point out that without him a limited future inevitably beckoned for someone like her? But wouldn’t any future be limited compared with the one he was offering her with all the money she could ever desire? He looked once again at her bare fingers. ‘You don’t show any signs of settling down,’ he observed.

‘Not at the moment, no.’

‘So do you see yourself continuing to make ends meet as a relatively hard-up waitress?’ he mused. ‘Is that how you want the rest of your life to pan out?’

There was anger on her face now. And something which looked like pride. ‘I don’t just waitress. I actually help Caroline with all the cooking,’ she declared icily. ‘And she’s indicated that she’d be prepared to let me buy the business when she eventually retires, which is what I’ve been saving up for. The waitressing is just a means to an end.’

‘And that’s what you really want, is it, Lucy? Resigning yourself to a life of relative poverty. Of a futile wait for Mr Right, perhaps—’

‘Excuse me?’ She pulled back her shoulders and glared at him. ‘You think all women are just waiting around for a would-be husband to leap into their life?’

He gave a careless shrug. ‘I’m saying that plenty of them are, yes—at least, in my experience. But if that’s what you’re hoping for, let me enlighten you. That man is just fantasy. He’s someone who may or may not materialise,’ he said softly. ‘Whereas a rich man with whom you’re sexually compatible—a man who really needs you—he’s here. Right here.’

His words had got through to her, he could see that. Just as he could see the temptation which flickered in her blue eyes.

‘And if I were to agree...’ Her voice tailed off. ‘What kind of marriage would you expect?’

Drakon heard the uncertain note in her voice but her darkening eyes told a different story. And suddenly he found himself being sucked into a vortex of erotic recall. He remembered the softness of her thighs and the untamed bush of hair which concealed her untouched treasure. For perhaps the only time in his adult sexual life, he had been momentarily astonished—and not just because she hadn’t waxed—because what woman of twenty-eight was a virgin in this day and age? He remembered the soft gasp she’d given when he had entered her, the faint pain of her initial response quickly giving way to breathless murmurs of encouragement and then, to her first sweetly sobbing orgasm. And hadn’t that felt sublime? Hadn’t he experienced a deep satisfaction as she had choked out her pleasure against his bare shoulder, her ecstatic response filling him with a rush of primeval pleasure?

He’d made love to her countless times during those few short days—justifying his seemingly insatiable appetite with the assurance that he was simply enjoying introducing her to sex. But it had been more than that, even though he’d been loath to admit it then and was even less inclined to do so now. Her untutored eagerness had lit a strange yearning inside him—one which was being ignited right now.

He felt the exquisite throb of desire at his groin and heard the powerful thunder of his own heart. Maybe it was wrong to be thinking about sex at a time like this, but didn’t they say the life force was at its most powerful during periods of grief and loss? Wasn’t it nature’s way of sustaining the human race, as well as reinforcing that, while his twin brother might be lying cold and dead beneath the hard earth, he, Drakon, was very much alive and at the mercy of his senses?

He began to walk towards her, noticing the instinctive tremble of her lips as he grew closer, but she didn’t stop him, nor show any signs of wanting to. She just stood there, her blue eyes bright and questioning, her thick dark hair spilling out of the untidy plait which snaked down her back.

‘I would expect the usual things which marriage entails,’ he said huskily. ‘Physical intimacy, for a start. I think that’s one thing we both know we really do have in common.’

Distractedly, Lucy rubbed her toe against the rug, scarcely able to believe they were having this kind of conversation. Normally she didn’t have to deal with anything more taxing than someone asking whether there were any gluten-free sandwiches available. Yet Drakon Konstantinou had just come right out and told her they were sexually compatible—him with a vast cast of ex-lovers and her with only one! She had no experience of such things but instinct told her that his words were true.

But was it enough for her to accept his offer of marriage? Enough for her to turn her back on her old life and enter a new one, which might be exciting but was tinged with uncertainty? With a father and a brother in the military she had grown up surrounded by uncertainty and she’d hated it. She’d longed for a safer world. A more predictable world. It was one of the reasons why she’d never really made waves in her own adult life. Why she’d always followed the rules and played safe.

Until she’d bumped into Drakon Konstantinou one balmy summer evening and the world had spun on its axis.

She knew she should say no. She should retreat back into her comfortable little world and try to forget the sexy billionaire and his bizarre offer.

But Lucy had been badly affected by what had happened to her family. In a few short years it had been wiped out as if it had never existed. Her father, brother and mother had all died in relatively quick succession. Orphaned and alone, she’d felt as if she had no real place anywhere. Sometimes she’d felt invisible. She still did. As if people were looking right through her. And all these feelings were compounded by the fact that she could never have children and be able to create a family of her own.

She stared into Drakon’s rugged face, hope flaring inside her despite all her misgivings. Because the Greek tycoon was offering her exactly that. Something she’d once thought impossible but which, unlike him, she had wanted. An instant family. A baby to love and to care for. Her mouth dried. Could it work? Could she make it work? And by doing that give them both what they needed—he a wife and she a child?

She licked her lips. ‘When do you need an answer by?’